Anvil of Fates: HALO vs AvP vs STARSHIP TROOPERS
by Beta Fett
Summary: Ch 8 posted. The crew of the Sentry of Eons fight to regain control of the ship to rescue those left behind on the planet surface, who now come under threat from an ancient enemy that is as deadly to predators, aliens and arachnid as it is to humans. But one of them has faced it before. The battles fought thus far are but the opening shots of the war about to erupt...
1. Chapter 1: The Warrior

**ANVIL OF FATES**

**Halo**

**AvP **

**Starship Troopers**

**Chapter 1: The Warrior**

Dreaming…

In this cool , light place where nothing hurt and nothing mattered…

Dreams…

So vivid and hopeful. Visions of a life never lived--a life he was never destined to live…

Memories…

Fade into the background, mere shadows cast behind him by the light into which he now gazed…

Peace…

He would never know… the light begins to fade….the shadows remain… growing in strength… snarling… hissing… hating…

WAR.

His only truth. A warrior born. A warrior bred. A warrior called:

"Master Chief?"

He stirred as Cortana's voice tugged at his consciousness, pulling him from the dream he had dreamed over and over again so many times. He couldn't move his body. His legs hit something close with no give in it, and for a second it felt like being buried alive. "I'm going to open your stasis module. You should stay still though, Chief; this environment isn't exactly what you can call stable."

The stasis module eased open, venting a little atmosphere which instantly froze into an icy fog. Master Chief felt the harness holding him in place tauten as his weightless body began to float in the zero-g environment. "Chief? Do you remember the last thing you said to me?" asked Cortana, for now a disembodied voice speaking to him through his armour's neural interface. For an AI construct she seemed remarkably human.

He tried to recall his last memories… they were still in there somewhere… fragmented by his time in suspension. It took a few moments to get his thoughts together.

He could remember the Battle for the Ark, teaming up with the wretched Parasite to stop the megalomaniac Prophet of truth from firing the six remaining rings; He remembered watching the birth of a new ring--a replacement for the first Halo he himself had destroyed in order to save humanity… in order to save all sentient life; Remembered 343 Guilty Spark--the Monitor of the first Halo he had destroyed--turning on him _again, _killing Major Johnson in the process when the Monitor realised the Warrior was about to blow the brand new ring and the Ark in order to destroy the infesting parasite Gravemind and its army; He remembered the desperate escape, fleeing towards the UNSC cruiser _Forward unto Dawn _as the Ark broke apart around him, leaving the bodies of Commander Keyes and Major Johnson and a thousand other good soldiers to perish forever with it; He remembered making it to the _Dawn, _punching the ship as hard as possible to escape the blast radius of the Halo detonation, trying to reach a fragile slip-space portal that would take him home; He remembered the portal collapsing around the _Dawn_ before it had made it through--bitten in half by the collapsing portal; he remembered that he was stranded now, tumbling through the farthest edge of the galaxy in the aft of the _Dawn_. He remembered that it was over.

He had finished the fight.

And, Yes: He remembered what his last words to Cortana were as he had put himself into stasis, in for a probable long, long wait for rescue. "I said: 'If you need me, Wake me.' "

He could hear the edge of a chuckle in the AI's voice, which seemed endearingly human. "Light me up, Chief."

The Warrior reached to the interface in the back of his helmet and ejected Cortana's Holo-chip module. Holding it at arm's length, palm up, the chip bloomed to life with a small, but perfect holographic representation of a human female. Iridescent data streams ran through her semi-opaque form in letters, numbers and glyphs, giving her an ethereal presence, like a pocket-sized Goddess. "I don't suppose we've been rescued?" Asked The Spartan II Warrior, so named after the most loyal and fearsomely intractable warriors in history.

"I think we've been found, Chief…. I'm just not sure by who. Or What. I've been picking up seemingly random signals for the last eighty-nine hours. Since the Dawn's array was swallowed up by the slip-space portal I've only had the epsilon band in your armour's comm unit to play with."

"What was the signal?" Asked Master Chief.

"Well, that's the interesting part. Since you blew up the Ark and we got chewed up trying to escape, we've been tumbling through space with just blast debris and background radiation for company. But four days ago your suit's comm unit picked up a spike in the seven Googlehertz range. I replied the only way I could: sending your transponder signal, and since then…" Cortana paused for moment, which was a little concerning; She usually didn't have a problem spilling beans--Good or Bad.

"What happened?"

The Holographic figure in his hand looked up to him. He could have sworn she looked straight into his eyes, despite the reflective gold-tinted visor covering his face. "We changed course, Chief; Something is pulling us towards the signal."

The Chief popped the latch on the stasis module's harness and let himself float out into the cargo hold. Out of the massive breach where the ship was cut in half was blackness and the distant twinkle of far stars, that, from his perspective, seemed to tumble around the void. "How long since the Ark?" he asked when he reached the edge of the breach, grabbing a ragged edge of twisted metal to stop floating out into deep space.

"Seventy-four days." Answered Cortana. The Chief deactivated her Hologram and slotted the holo-chip into its interface; the last thing he needed was to accidentally lose Cortana to space. A magenta cloud rolled into view, looking like a small nebula. He guessed it was what was left of the Ark. "Why hasn't the Covenant come looking?" He asked.

"We have to hope that with the Prophets gone they've lost their nerve. If they did find us we'd be in serious trouble." She answered. It wasn't encouraging. The Prophet of Truth was the most driven and tenacious of the Prophets, and encouraged the same in his followers; somehow the Warrior couldn't see them quitting quite so easily. "Or…" she continued, interrupting his train of thought, "…If we're lucky, maybe the Arbiter and the Elites have subdued the Prophet ideology. He was in a pretty righteous mood the last time we saw him.. if he survived through the portal, that is."

The Arbiter had been an elite--the leaders of the Covenant armed forces and guards of the Prophets sanctum, with a reputation as precise and exacting strategists, as well as fierce warriors in their own right. They alone amongst the Covenant eventually saw the madness in the plans of the Prophets; saw truth where the Prophet of Truth saw only delusions of grandeur and self-idolatry. And, like the Human race, saw destruction, where the Covenant saw ascension. As Master Chief had been the spearhead of the Human counter-attack, so had the Arbiter been for the Elites. In their eyes, the Prophets had betrayed the Gods and the ideals that bound the Covenant together in their sacred contract. The Elites, in turn, became a separatist force, working against their former comrades, replaced as the leaders of the Covenant armies by the Brutes--dull rocks to the Elites fine blades. It had been a long hard fight since, but the Chief knew that the moment the Elites had turned, it was the beginning of the end for the Prophets plans. Human and Elite had become tentative allies and, in the end, had won the day.

…And the Chief's respect as warriors, though there was still too much human blood on their hands to ever forgive.

The aft of the _Dawn_ continued its endless roll through space, making the view slightly nauseating after a while. The Chief looked out into the void--a cybernetically-enhanced super soldier, the last of his kind, whose emotions were suppressed by genetic engineering and years of intensive training. Somewhere in his hidden subconscious--like a firefly in a vast cave--an alien sensation flickered dimly. For the first time in his life, the Spartan Warrior designated John 117 felt lost, both spiritually and physically. He felt no purpose; his war was over, and he was far from… from… from what? Home? He had never had one; Whatever battleground he fought upon was his home, until it was time to move on to the next. He had fought the Covenant--and more recently, the Flood--hard over the years, not out of compassion for his fellow man, or a sense of duty to humanity, but from a deeply ingrained discompassion for anything deemed his enemy.

And now it was over… the war against the Covenant had been an epic battle that had lasted a century. While that had been a battle for survival, the struggle against the Flood had been a battle for the very existence of all sentient life. The worst thought was that the flood would surely still be out there somewhere, in some dark, hidden corner of the galaxy. And just one single flood infection form could destroy an entire planet. Their logic was brutally simple: Infest; assimilate; disseminate. Master Chief didn't know how many planets had fallen to the Parasite, but, were he a betting man, he would have wagered it was no slim figure.

"Hmm…" Murmured Cortana. "Chief, I've been analysing that signal since I received it, trying to figure it out. It was badly decayed when I received it, but it's not improving any as we get closer, so that suggests to me that the signal was corrupt at transmission--maybe a faulty transmitter array. But it's interesting… I've made out one complete word from the signal. It was broadcast as a micro pulse within a stacked packet, and it was as decayed as the rest of the signal, but I managed to put it together after a few cycles."

"You put it together like a puzzle?"

"Right."

"What is it?"

"One word, Chief: Portal. And there's more."

"It's Origin?" Asked the Warrior.

"Right, again." She said, continuing: "Chief, it's Forerunner. And it could be a way back to earth."

At that moment something large and metallic rolled by the breach. By its colour and distinctive curving design it was plainly a fragment of Covenant dreadnaught, probably from the space battle fought above the Ark. "Lots of this junk has been passing us. I think it's all being pulled towards the signal too."

"Then the source of the signal isn't a Halo." He said. It wasn't a question.

"No. Something different."

"If it's something the Forerunners left active, it's likely to be a weapon. "

"Going by their record so far, I'd say that's a fair assessment; it most likely _is_ a weapon… or a way to reach one."

"The Portal…" Mused the Warrior. The possibility of an unknown Forerunner weapon was a daunting one. He hoped that somewhere in the galaxy the surviving Halo rings were being pounded to scrap metal.

"Ahh!! You have been revived. Very good!" exclaimed a voice out of the darkness--a voice so startlingly familiar that the Chief instantly reached for his sidearm and span to face the treacherous Monitor. As he took aim, he realised that what he was looking at was only a hologram. It was a Forerunner installation Monitor, a small metallic sphere--about the size of a soccer ball--with a stylised carapace and single glaring 'eye' that glowed blue. But it couldn't have been 343 Guilty Spark; The Chief had finished off that devious Monitor for good when he destroyed the replacement Halo aboard the Ark… but hadn't he thought he had done that before? And hadn't Spark found the Elites and told them of Halo's purpose, the very act that had begun their insurrection?

With his finger still firmly on the trigger, the holographic Monitor introduced itself with the amiable and dulcet tones that was their greatest trait. "Greetings, Near Human. I am 542 Pensive Storm, Monitor of installation Alpha."

The Chief kept his gun trained on the hologram, which flickered badly due to a poor signal. "I destroyed installation Alpha." He said.

The Monitor seemed nonplussed for a moment. "I assure you, Near Human, my installation has not been destroyed. However, it is possible you may be referring to Alpha Ring."

"Then it is something different." Said Cortana, audible only to the Chief. If the Monitor could somehow sense the AI it didn't show it.

"Then what is installation Alpha?" asked the Warrior, finally lowering his sidearm a little, but keeping it at hand, as if the Hologram could somehow become corporeal and do something dangerous.

"This is not the time for answers, Near Human; My power reserves are dwindling and this broadcast is a strain on them. You are being pulled towards installation Alpha as I address you. Had I the ability, I would open a portal and bring you here immediately, such is the urgency of the situation. However, the Makers deemed that only a living hand can open a portal, thus I must convey you here by different means. I have utilised installation Alpha's gravitic assembly to pull you here, though it will take some time. "

"How long is some time?"

"Seventeen point four-six years." The monitor said with the ease of an entity that measured time in half lives, not seconds, or days, or years. It would have sounded exactly the same if it had said '_Tommorow_'. "May I ask if you expect to survive such a journey? I see you have a suspension chamber. Is it operable?"

"It works." Said the Chief, cagily. "But what if I don't want to cooperate?"

"You misunderstand, Near Human." Said the Monitor in its polite voice that--like all the Monitors he had met--seemed to mask some kind of malice or intent. "You have no choice; You are a child of the Makers; I must bring you here. Your answers must wait until then. " With those last words the hologram cut off. There seemed to be no appeal with this 542 Pensive Storm.

The Warrior holstered his side arm. "Shanghaied by a monitor. You know you can't trust it, Chief." said Cortana.

"I know. " He said, guiding himself towards his stasis module. "But I want answers."

"It's a long time to stay under." Said Cortana. He could hear that she didn't want him to cooperate, but the Monitor was right: What choice did he have, unless he was lucky enough for someone to stumble across him in his wreck, among a stream of wreckage? He swung himself into his stasis chamber and secured the harness.

"If you need me…" He said.

"I will, Chief. I will."

The Spartan II Warrior, designated John 117 closed his eyes as the stasis chamber closed around him.

They remained closed for the next Seventeen point four-six years.

--------------------

The Aft of the Dawn had tumbled through space for nearly eighteen years, on an unknown course, to an unknown destination, for reasons that had yet to be disclosed. The Spartan warrior had been in stasis for all of this time, unaware and unknowing of the thousands of near misses his wreckage had encountered over the years, from fragments of Covenant ships, the Ark debris, to a close pass near a chain of comets which, as luck would have it, also changed course, pulled towards the mysterious installation.

The speed of the wreck's long journey along the very edge of the galaxy had been slowly increasing over the years, but even at its zenith of thirty-seven thousand metres per second, it was still a painfully slow crawl through the vastness of space. It also seemed the Monitor had done his calculations correctly, since the Master Chief's makeshift lifeboat would arrive on course and on time, as predicted.

--------------------

"Chief! Get out, now!"

The words pierced into his consciousness like an arrow. His stasis tube was already open, and he became aware of a roaring in his ears and a violent shuddering that seemed to shake his very bones. One particularly violent jolt rocked his head to the left, where he could now see white hot flames streaking past the breach, and turning the ragged edges cherry red.

He popped the catch on the harness and tried to climb out of the tube. His bones and muscles, tired and unused for nearly two decades throbbed with the effort, and the G-force of the wreckage's fall only hindered him more.

"Chief, we're going to hit dirt in one-hundred and twenty-four seconds." Said Cortana. He could barely hear her through the roar of the flames, despite the fact she was interfaced with his neutral pathways.

Hand over hand, searching for purchase wherever he could, the Warrior pulled himself, like an insect clinging to a wall, closer to the breach. The raging flames would have consumed flesh in moments, rendering it to ash before one could muster a scream. But the exceptional engineering of the Mjolnir armour of the Spartan warrior had already allowed him to survive an atmospheric freefall and the subsequent hard landing once before, when he had destroyed a Prophet's ship above earth. He only hoped the gel layer in his armour was up for a repeat impact.

He hooked his hands over the edge of the breach, the flames swallowing his hands from sight, yet he felt nothing; his suit was so well insulated and regulated that the temperature within never raised more than a couple of degrees. As the wreckage plummeted through the upper atmosphere of wherever this place was, the Chief pulled himself bodily through the curtain of flames, still protected by his armour. With one more concerted effort he felt himself topple over the edge, his stomach lurching as it did when in freefall. And now he was a fireball, streaking through the atmosphere. The only thing left to worry about now was the landing impact. But should he survive it--as he had before--he would have to hope that Cortana survived intact, too, in order to release his armour's damping lock, which immobilised all of the joints of the armour to prevent the wearer suffering multiple fractures of any or all limbs in such a situation as the Chief now found himself in for the second time in his life.

The flames died away as he entered the lower atmosphere, the roar of the air whizzing by his armour's aural receptors remained. He found himself staring at a clear blue sky, blemished here and there by small feather-like clouds high above. Using his arms and legs like rudders, he manage to roll over and face the ground, which, oddly, was scarred with hundreds of impact craters, and was approaching fast…

"Thirty seconds, Chief." Warned Cortana. "There's a small lake to the east."

The Warrior turned his head in a full arc, from right to left, finally seeing the lake--if it could be called that; pond might have been more accurate. Using his limbs to correct the course of his plummet, he steered himself towards the small body of water.

That the installation was Forerunner was now beyond doubt; From his eagle eye vantage point he could see many rising spires with their distinctive geometric architecture that he had seen on every Forerunner installation he had set foot on. And like the Halo 'ringworlds' and the Ark, this place had topography and an atmosphere--remarkably like earth's.

If the Chief had any sense of irony he would surely have been amused at how many Christian beliefs had been thrust upon the Forerunners as a species by Humanity, which found it was not alone in the universe, and not as divine as it once held itself to be: Ark… Flood… Halo… Covenant…

The ground was rushing up to meet him, and it seemed that he wasn't going to splash down as he had hoped he would. He impacted into the boggy, sodden ground yards short of the pond, sinking deep into the quagmire with the force of the landing. It was like he had fallen from the sky into his very grave. He didn't know how deep he had sank, and had no bearings, unable to tell which way he now faced. Any attempts to move were futile; the quagmire had his whole body locked in a vacuum. "Cortana?" He asked, resisting the urge to struggle.

"Alive and well, Chief."

There was a sudden violent tremor that shuddered through the ground, loosening the hold the sodden soil had on him for just a moment, and at the moment he felt the slightest give, Master Chief managed to free his right arm a little.

"I think that was the wreckage of the Dawn hitting dirt." Said Cortana.

"Don't worry about the Dawn. Worry about how we're going to get out of this hole." Grumbled the Warrior.

"Right. If this installation is anything like Halo or the Ark, I can zero in on its gravity field and get you going." She said. After a few seconds pause she continued: "Okay… Chief, You're lying on your left side; your legs are elevated about a foot above your head. This stuff has got a hold on you like quicksand, so on my mark I need you to kick your right leg back and forth as hard as possible. I'm going to purge a little of the air from your suit to break the seal around you and give you a chance to move. Starting in three… two… one… mark."

The Warrior did as he was told, thrashing his leg as hard as he could as Cortana jettisoned some air from his armour's life support systems. The mud immediately released its grip around him as the sodden ground filled with a forced air bubble; however, within moments the bubble collapsed around him, locking him in again. "Again--right leg, right arm this time. Three… two… one… kick!"

The Warrior thrashed again, and felt the mud around him give again. The displaced mud oozed around and under him, and when the bubble collapsed again, he knew he'd made some progress. Whether it could be measure in inches or feet, he didn't know, although it didn't seem to matter; it was working, and that was the important thing.

Time seemed to draw out as Cortana and he repeated the process dozens of times, slowly, painstakingly working his way back towards the surface. For a brief moment he saw daylight above him as the bubble collapsed. With one final effort--the Warrior and AI in perfect synch with each other now--he punched through to the surface like the Undead from the grave.

He took a moment to rest. For now he was still on boggy ground, and any attempt to walk over the sodden ground would just result in him getting stuck in the mud again. Instead, after what felt like an hour--though in reality, it was less than half of that--the exhausted Warrior, caked in heavy, clotted mud began crawling for dry land. He couldn't remember ever feeling so tired in his life, and when he reached the rocky embankment that led to a lush meadow above, he rolled onto his back, only wishing to rest for a moment. Soon an all consuming darkness consumed him. Master Chief slept.

And dreamed…

--------------------

His eyes fluttered for a moment, caught in that moment when the brain is wakened, but the body isn't. When they snapped open he realised that things had changed:

He was no longer outdoors. Someone or Something had brought him inside. The mud on his armour had dried, and broke away in clumps each time he moved.

He was in 542 Pensive Storm's installation--of that he had no doubt; the bare architectural designs of the Forerunners were everywhere: Strange geometric lines and flowing curves. It as almost as if the Forerunners considered the math of their designs as an art form in itself.

"Cortana?" he asked. His voice reverberated around the vast, dim chamber.

"Right here."

"Who brought me here?"

"I did." Answered a voice out of the gloom. Its pleasant timbre and meticulous enunciation still reminded him of the treacherous Guilty Spark. But now that they were meeting in person (as it were) for the first time, the Warrior could hear that 542 Pensive Storm's voice was slightly deeper. The way it rang around the vast chamber made it sound like a giant in a fairytale. "I need you on your feet, Near human; Time is short."

The central 'eye' of the Orb shaped Monitor emitted a blue energy beam that pulled Master Chief to his feet as a mother might a child after a trip. "Follow me, please." Said the Monitor, hovering beside the Spartan Warrior for a moment before leading the way into the complex. The Chief had to set off at a brisk pace to keep up.

"You said I would get answers when I got here." stated the Spartan.

"Correction: I stated in my communiqué that it was not a time for answers. Now, fortuitously, I may provide you with answers… If you have questions, of course." Said the Monitor, never breaking pace.

Master Chief knew this could get tiresome; Monitor's rarely divulged information until asked--and even then, only as much as they thought you should know. "What is this place?" Asked the Chief.

"This is Installation Alpha, Near Human. Also known as the Diadem." Answered the Monitor, slipping through a doorway and waiting for the Chief to follow.

The Spartan stepped into a huge corridor, brightly lit by the daylight that poured in through the vast windows that ran from the floor to the ceiling, forty feet high on both sides. After a few steps he realised he was on an enclosed bridge that ran to a tower adjacent to the one he had just left behind. The ground was hundreds of feet below him. The blue sky above, which was strangely sunless, was slashed with hundreds of small fireballs burning up in the atmosphere. There was a constant rain of debris from space, and the Warrior knew how the installation's surface was so pockmarked by impact craters.

"What is the Diadem? A weapon?" he asked.

"No." replied the Monitor.

"No?" the surprise in Master Chief's voice was plain.

"The Diadem was among the first installations built to combat the Flood; however, it cannot be considered a weapon, since the first tactic of the Maker's was never to annihilate the Parasite; merely to expel it."

"Probably some kind of trap, Chief." Said Cortana. Again, it appeared the Monitor couldn't sense the AI. The Chief repeated her assessment to 542 Pensive Storm.

"Correct." Said the Monitor. " A trap constructed for a Gravemind and its brood; However, there is a problem. That is why it was imperative that I brought you here, Near human.

"What kind of a problem?"

"When your biological signature was picked up by the Ark's perimeter arrays, the signal was sent out to all installations in readiness for activation. The moment I realised that the children of the Makers were near, I realised I had to bring you here to activate the Fold. However, to do so I had to deploy installation Alpha's Gravitic arrays on the lowest settings. Unfortunately, this not only pulled you towards the Diadem, but every stray comet and meteorite, every wreckage and general detritus from the sector--as you may see." Said the Pensive Storm, indicating the crisscrossing trails of the fireballs in the sky.

"Amongst the objects that crashed was a ship of a design of which I am not familiar. It crashed close by." The Monitor stopped and looked out of the window to where a river had carved a deep valley over the Eons since the construction of the Diadem. Master Chief saw it immediately, and knew it was bad news: A scorched section of Covenant Dreadnaught had crashed into the wall of the valley and fell into the river. "There was many dead beings aboard. " Continued the Monitor. "And many Flood infection forms; the ship must have been badly infested when it was destroyed. Strangely, Near Human, it came from the same region as you. Are you familiar with this ship's configuration?"

"Yes." Said the Warrior. "It's Covenant, and it's bad news. Were there any humanoid survivors--other species, not human?"

"The only surviving life forms were Flood; They quickly dispersed into the surrounding area."

"They can't do much harm out there, and they won't survive long without hosts." Said Master Chief, a little relieved; the last thing he wanted to see right now was another Flood outbreak.

"Correction, Near human: A simple herbivorous species has been evolving here for many hundreds of thousands of years. They were deposited here by a carnivorous race that had the audacity to use this installation as a place to raise the mammals for meat. I believe if one were to travel to the caves in the third quadrant, one would still find sufficient evidence of their butchery. I cannot--"

"How many of these herbivores are there?" asked the Warrior. A sudden sense of urgency seemed to be brewing in him.

"The Butchers have not returned for many thousands of years, thus the Herbivores, without any natural predators have increased in number exponentially. One can witness herds of up to seventy million moving through the meadows in the third quadrant."

Millions.

"Do you know what will happen if just one Infection form finds a herd?" urged the Chief.

"Of course." Said the Monitor, his tone still pleasant and relatively unperturbed. "But now that you are here, I can make preparations for the activation of the Diadem's portal. The Fold must be activated soon, Near Human; the debris pulled in with you is beginning to damage my installation."

"You want to get it done before you get smacked by a meteor, right?" said the Chief, somewhat dryly.

"Indeed."

The door to the next tower suddenly opened next to where the Warrior stood. His armour's life support systems, now set for terrestrial use, sucked up the stale air into the scrubbers, but Master Chief could still smell the smell of dust and decay and bad air.

Pensive Storm led the way into the complete darkness ahead. The Chief stayed close, activating the small lamps located under the visor of his helmet. Dust sparkled in the beams of light--thick, choking dust that obscured his vision. As he walked he kicked something small and brittle that skittled across the floor, lost to the darkness. The Warrior pressed on, swallowed by this place that felt like the biggest mausoleum in the galaxy. After a few careful strides something crunched underfoot. Master Chief picked up the object.

It was small--maybe about the length of his finger--chalky, and crumbled to dust within moments. Cortana spoke up: "Chief. That was a bone. Maybe a metatarsal--I'm not positive. But it's definitely humanoid"

The Warrior dusted off his hands and continued after Pensive Storm, stepping up his pace a little to catch up.

They arrived at another door, which the Monitor activated. It opened into a large circular elevator, lit by a large hexagonal skylight high above. A layer of fine white dust had coated everything. When Master Chief stepped into the elevator the dust broiled around his bootheels like miniature tempests. Here, too, were more chalky white bone fragments. At the foot of the elevator's holographic interface lay a small collection of bones. There was less than two dozen fragments all together, and no compete bones. The Chief guessed that this was the spot where a Forerunner had fallen eons ago in that distant epoch that marked the end--or at least the beginning of the end--for the Forerunners. "What happened here?" He asked.

"Containment" remarked the Monitor. "Somehow, a small Flood force managed to escape the Dyson field within the core and shutdown the Diadem's security measures and the Sentinel control unit. With its defences down and no prospect of evacuation during a Flood outbreak, the Makers were forced to take up arms to fight the Flood back into the Dyson field, while I re-established the security protocols and the Sentinels. Unfortunately, the last of the Makers fell before the Fold could be properly activated. Thus, a Flood Gravemind, and it's brood are still trapped within the Dyson field, where time itself is immaterial."

"And you need me to pull the plug and flush them away?" Asked the Chief.

"An ironic metaphor, Near Human, but comparable to your task."

"I don't trust him." Said Cortana. Master Chief silently agreed with her; Monitors had never proven trustworthy.

The elevator began to descend, sinking into a gloom. The Warrior suddenly felt naked without his weapons. He only had his sidearm, but didn't know how many bullets were left. Regardless; if there was Flood loose below, he was in serious trouble. Whether or not they were contained within their sub-space prison, it still seemed like a bad idea to get so close to them to activate the installation. It was then he realised that 542 Pensive Storm, like Guilty Spark aboard Halo, was being evasive about the true powers of the Diadem, and the last time he had taken the word of a Monitor for granted, he had nearly activated a weapon array so powerful it could eliminate all sentient life in the galaxy. "What does this place do? "He asked.

The Monitor didn't answer for a few seconds--whether deliberately ignoring him or gathering its thoughts, he didn't care; He was not going to let the wool be pulled over his eyes again, so asked once more.

"The Gravemind and the remaining trapped Flood would be isolated." Was Pensive Storm's reply. It was still no answer.

"They're already isolated." Said the Chief. "They're trapped in a sub-space bubble."

"Indeed." Said Storm. "But as I have said before: This installation's power source is beginning to fail. In a few hundred years it will not be able to sustain the Dyson field. And if the Gravemind escaped and the Flood take control of this installation it would be a catastrophe."

"The last Monitor that brought me to its installation secretly tried to trick me into activating the Halo network. How can I trust you?" Said Master Chief, plainly.

The Monitor's tone filled with affrontment. "Why… I never! I have only ever carried out my duties according to the parameters assigned by the Makers. My function is to facilitate the activation of the Fold by any means necessary. The failsafe renders me powerless. The fate of the Flood within this installation is in your hands--figuratively speaking--and always has been. I am capable of nothing more."

The Chief reached for the Monitor, hooking his fingers into the gaps in its carapace and pulling it close. He asked again: "What does the Diadem do? What is its ultimate purpose?"

"To dispose of the Flood by forcing the Sub-space bubble into temporal shift. The Gravemind would be transported as far into the future as possible. To the very end of time, if there is such a thing."

The Warrior let go of the Monitor, which drifted back a foot or so, but remained close. The purpose of the Diadem was, like the Halo network, typically Forerunner: Elegant, practical (for a race as advanced as they were, anyway), and brutally efficient. "You're just going to catapult them forwards in time… make them someone else's problem?"

"The ethics of the solution are not mine to contemplate, Near Human; I am simply here to effect the temporal shift. Beyond that, I have no purpose." Said Storm.

"And if I refuse?"

"You cannot. You must not. Without activation, the Diadem's power will eventually fail, and the Flood will escape."

Before the Master Chief could respond the elevator stopped and the doors parted. The Monitor once again led the Warrior into a vast chamber. A deep chasm plunged into dark hidden depths below, crossed only by an energy bridge, the white light from which illuminated the chamber, throwing long dark shadows behind the massive pillars which towered above, reaching all the way to the ceiling. In the centre of the room, right above the extremity of the bridge was a massive concave disk, supported by strong steel spars that angled upwards from the walls. At the focal point of this dish array something hung--some piece of Forerunner technology, that would concentrate whatever energy was used to force a temporal shift. It was aimed into the depths below. "This is the Fold, Near Human; the heart of the Diadem. Deep below us is the Dyson threshold where the Flood are contained."

The whole complex shuddered with a hard impact somewhere outside… somewhere close. "Come. Time is short." Said the Monitor as it began over the bridge of light, eventually coming to a console beneath the focal aerial. Holograms sprang into the air: thousands of numerical figures, all tumbling and changing--some in milliseconds, others at a more leisurely pace; what was sure was that they were keeping a track of time.

"The Makers worked on the mathematics of the Fold for five generations. And I have laboured on them since, making slight adjustments here and there… the Flood should be fired many billions of years into the future." Said Storm, busy scrutinising the numerical figures.

"Chief, get me in there; I still don't trust him." Said Cortana.

With the Monitor's back turned as he perused the holograms, the Chief surreptitiously ejected Cortana's module from his neural interface and placed it on the console, just a above a pad shaped like a human hand, which, he correctly assumed, was how the Fold was activated. Within moments the bluish glow of Cortana's module faded; She was in.

"Odd." Murmured the Monitor, more to himself than the Chief. "There was a sudden cache of invalid executions. It may be, Near Human, that the data is corrupted."

The whole of the Fold suddenly rocked, battered by another piece of falling space junk. The ceiling high above had buckled in, and the struts supporting the dish twisted, throwing the whole thing out of alignment by nearly a meter. "NO!" exclaimed the Monitor, and began racing through the data he was calculating at a rate the Chief couldn't keep up with.

The sound of stressed metals screeching echoed in the Fold as if it were a living thing in pain. "The ceiling is going to come down on top of us if you don't hurry." Urged the Chief.

"I have to make many adjustments!" wailed Pensive Storm. "Perhaps there is--" Before he could finish something punched though the roof of the Fold completely, smashing into the energy bridge. The meteorite shattered into thousands of pieces with the force of an explosion, and rocks, ranging in size from pennies to the size of a fist flew in all directions with the force of bullets. Master Chief was smacked by a torrent and knocked over the edge of the bridge. Only by blind luck did his hand manage to reach out and grasp the edge. He was left dangling over the precipice as everything above him was shredded to pieces by the exploding meteorite. The Monitor plunged into the chasm, sparking and lifeless, small holes punched clean through his tough carapace.

"Chief!?" Cortana's voice echoed through the chamber. "Chief?!"

The Warrior pulled himself over the edge of the bridge and crossed to the badly damaged console. Cortana had used the console's holo emitter to appear full-sized before him, though she flickered badly. More significant was the fact that her module was gone; she was trapped in the console.

"Chief, I don't know if the Fold is still operational, but you have to activate the portal right now!" She urged.

Just as he was about to reply, the energy bridge flickered, before the field collapsed completely. Master Chief instinctively reached out for something to grip again, his left arm taking his full weight hard. He was left dangling over the chasm once more… only this time there was no way back. He, too, was trapped.

"Do it, Chief! Before it's too late!"

"Where does it go?" He asked, pulling himself up the console, towards the activation pad.

"Anywhere but here." Replied Cortana.

"The Flood…" he uttered.

"You keep fighting them wherever and whenever find yourself, Chief--You fight them, do you hear me?"

"And you?" He asked, hand wavering over the activation pad.

"We both know what's going to happen to me…" She said.

Both paused, regarding each other for a moment--the Warrior and the Construct: a master and his servant, closer than any lovers in the world could ever hope to be, the very best of friends…

"Goodbye, John." She said.

The Warrior rested his hand on the pad…

The world went white, and all of the air seemed to be crushed out of his lungs, and for the briefest of moments, it felt just like dreaming…


	2. Chapter 2: Hunters

Chapter 2: Hunters

Noc looked out of the viewport at emerald planet before him. It was perfect: hot, humid, carboniferous, and far enough from the system sun to stay that way for a long, long time. It would make a fine planet for seeding of the hard meat. A fine place for the hunt.

He and his crew had been searching for a planet within tightly specified parameters for many seasons fruitlessly. The crew had grown restless at one point, on the tipping point of mutiny, but Noc had ordered the decimation of the honourless ones by poisoning. To the yautja, it was a fate worse than death; it was a dishonour - a stigma that would haunt one's descendants for generations. The dissension within the ranks petered away to nothing, and everyone fell back in line again. But even that had seemed a long long time ago.

When the bloodlust had taken hold - usually among the younger males - he had ordered the ship to set down on the nearest suitable world and had let them tear apart a few hard meat. It couldn't be called hunting, since the slick, dark serpents were simply corralled out of the hold into a gathering of baying Yautja, who cut through them as fast as they could to get to the next. They wouldn't be missed; just disposable drones, merely negligible. But secured in a pen in the hold was something far more precious: a matriarch. A queen. And it was vital she survived to seed the world Noc had chosen, lest there be no hunt for the elders, returning from the journey to the hard meat homeworld.

His immediate subordinate approached, head bowed slightly, eyes cast downwards. Noc had always liked Phay'd; he was a rarity among the Yautja; one who hunted for the glory of his race, not for personal satisfaction. His body was a storybook of scars, few of them accidental. From his right shoulder, past his chest to his navel, ran a mottled swathe of a scar that Phay'd had earned when he had knowingly impeded a badly injured hard meat queen just to stop her escaping, getting showered in acid blood for his trouble. He wore the scar proudly, as he should; his actions had saved the hunt and the seeding. Few things were as honourable. Noc had made Phay'd his second in command that very day in reward, for he was a fair leader - one who punished cowardice and treachery, and rewarded exceptional bravery and honour. Besides, his old first officer had been amongst the decimated mutineers, and he had needed a suitable replacement for nearly a whole season, but could find none worthy.

Phay'd faced his captain after making his salute, the skin on his crest sweaty and greasy from some unknown labour. Noc glanced behind Phay'd and saw two seniors each dragging a nearly unconscious junior along the floor. The juniors had been beaten badly and were dripping luminous green blood on the floor.

Phay'd grabbed one by the neck, and lifted him to face the captain. These were the dissenters and borderline saboteurs: unblooded pups who wished to prove themselves, but their actions had been foolish; they had released a hard meat for sport aboard the ship – a deadly error in judgement.

Noc fixed his eyes on the young, unblooded before him. He would never deny one of his kind their sport, but their actions were reckless and premature; for in only hours they would set foot on this pristine world for a celebratory hunt – should such impertinence and impatience go unpunished?

The bleeding pup grunted something incomprehensible, his luminous blood mixing with his saliva, which bubbled and frothed at his maw when he tried to communicate. Noc took the unblooded 's right hand and folded the fingers so far back that all four broke with a sickening snapping chorus. The pup howled in pain, and moments later Noc heard the breaking of more bones, and realised that Phay'd was dealing with the other junior. The other unblooded took the pain incredibly well, always maintaining eye contact with Phay'd. The only outwardly visible sign of his incredible pain was his muscles tensing tightly around his mandibles and crest. Noc dismissed them; they would have their sport - if they were lucky they might even survive, and a part of their honour would be restored. If not, he hoped they would die well. The juniors were dragged away, out of sight, and already out of Noc's mind. Only one thing was on his mind now: the seeding. It was imperative that this new world be seeded as soon as possible, so that a satisfactory hive would be in place for whenever the returning elders made it to the sector.

He was watching the emerald world again, though in the wavelength the yautja saw, it appeared as a mottled sphere of greens, yellows and occasional oranges. Phay'd trilled appreciably at the find, which bolstered Noc's pride.

Noc nodded: It _was_ a fine place. The long and eagerly awaited hunt would come soon, but first the proper sacraments would have to be observed. He placed his hand on a pad on the console before him, which bloomed with the holographic representation of a sarcophagus of sorts. Red glyphs detailed varied but quietly subdued biological readings of the sleeper within. Noc nodded with apparent satisfaction, and sent Phay'd in his stead to waken the ancient one, so that the revered work of this most marked of days could begin.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Phay'd entered the chamber of sleep, and breezed by the common stasis tubes to where the intricate sarcophagus stood against the far wall. Within it lay the only living Dek'd'tor in the galaxy who wasn't on a pilgrimage to the hard meat homeworld with the elders. He was of such an old age that he had to be put in to suspension, lest the gods decide to take him before his task was complete.

He activated the sarcophagus, dialling in commands and pulling the four circular seals set down each edge. Hissing gas escaped, and the lid of the sarcophagus slid away into a recess in the ceiling. Before it had retracted fully, Phay'd was already down on one knee in reverence to the Dek'd'tor.

The ancient yautja's cataracted eyes flickered open after a little effort, his mandibles twitching a little. His old body, once powerful and toned, was now withered and failing. His headlocks were long and cracked and grey with old age. This elder had earned his lofty status by devotion to the hunt, becoming Dek'd'tor when - as was the practice amongst the species - he had killed ten-thousand hard meat during a rich and successful life; one was only born with such luck to survive so many hunts if the gods looked kindly on you. As the oldest among all the Dek'd'tor (and perhaps all of his species) he had declined the pilgrimage to the hard meat homeworld, instead choosing to continue his duties for the pilgrims' return.

Phay'd waited on his knee until the Dek'd'tor spoke. He remarked on the strong musk Phay'd exuded, and Phay'd reverently told him of the dissent that had swelled in the ranks on the long journey.

The old Yautja sighed and nodded, apparently unsurprised; he was very, very old, and had seen many, many young Yautja lose their senses, he wheezed, stepping out of the sarcophagus. As if against a chill - even though it was balmy aboard the ship, even by Yautja standards - the Dek'd'tor wrapped his deep red cloak around himself.

Phay'd got to his feet, and attempted to explain to the ancient one why he had been awoken, but the Dek'd'tor shuffled by him without notice, already committed to beginning the sacraments he had carried out so many times before. He needed nobody to tell him what to do; his body may have withered with age, but the mind was still keen.

Phay'd bowed respectfully, feeling a pleasant surge of anticipation rise within him.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Noc studied the hologram closely. The topographical representation of the planet was clearly marked out with many visible oceans and continents. Here and there were blots of red, representing high concentrations of warm-blooded life forms - essential to the seeding process. Noc picked a small continent where the mammalians seemed to be concentrated in a huge natural basin formed by mountains all around. He zeroed in the hologram, and zoomed the view: yes, it would be a great place for the seeding - a natural trap for the hard meat, with enough warm hosts to ensure the seeding would take. He fingered four points in the hologram: valleys that led out of the basin - the only escape routes for any land bound creatures in the basin. These would be the places the kainde amedha eggs would be strategically placed, so that the seeding would spread inwards at a controllable rate. A handful of worker drones would guard the eggs in the valleys, and a handful would protect the queen when she was dispatched in the heart of the basin. Noc hoped her new kingdom would be a bountiful one.

As for the rest of the hard meat drones… Noc fingered an area of the hologram just outside the mountains - an area strangely devoid of mammalian life and honeycombed with caves.

There. The rest of the hard meat would be dropped there, and the crew would have their hunt. He hoped it would sate the fire in their blood.

He left the chamber, walking deep into the bowels of the ship, where the preparations for the seeding were taking place. The eggs in storage were already being loaded into the six seeding craft, and the kainde amedha drones were being partitioned off from the queen by huge steel shutters and corralled into the seeding craft holding pens. The noise was tremendous: a hissing, screeching cacophony of hate. Yet all was drowned out by the queen when her newest batch of eggs were conveyed on well-hidden belts into recesses in the walls for dispatch into the seeders. The massive alien writhed and screamed against her restraints - the sound of a mother losing her brood.

Noc approached, and stood before the kainde amedha mother, just out of reach of her reaching, grasping talons. She was a fine specimen, chosen by Noc himself and captured by a group he had led many seasons ago. She had proven very productive, her eggs supplementing the cache he had brought with him. Her instincts were keen and sharp - as any mother's should be - and her hate burned hot and bright - as any hard meat's should.

Her head dropped to within a few feet of Noc, the fight apparently worn out of her. She drooped in her restraints. The deep hissing breaths of the queen filled the air. Her twitching lips revealed her mouthful of needle sharp teeth. The teeth parted, and behind them, her inner jaws also parted, primed to piston through Noc's flesh if he came another step closer. She hissed… long and from low in her throat, she hissed at her captor, a beast of sheer instinct face to face with the hunter. Her inner jaws suddenly snapped out, falling short of his face by less than a finger length. Noc, a keen veteran hunter had known for a long time just how close one could come to a queen without harm. She screeched again, and railed hard against her shackles. Noc bayed like a wild animal and bellowed back at the alien queen with all the effort he could muster. Both sounds were powerful and primal. He was not mocking her, nor was it a battle cry, or some salute of respect; merely a show of might against a might prey.

A team had assembled in the dark behind him, preparing to drive the queen to her berth on the main seeder. The team of nine Yautja, all in full hunt gear, carried lengths of acid resistant wire ropes and spears. It was all they would need. The escort of a kainde amedha queen was always done personally by a team; never by an automated ship system. And since a hard meat never went anywhere willingly, the team was usually well experienced. Within the structure of the team was a strict pecking order, and each member was assigned a position in accordance with their stature: a highly experienced hunter would normally restrain a limb, where a lesser would not typically take place in the physical transportation of the queen, but guard the rear in case of escape or attack.

The team moved into their positions without much incident, though there was some jostling for position among the lesser hunters - there always was. Their lassoes were thrown onto the queen, securing her limbs and appendages, keeping her reined-in despite her size and strength. The slack was taken up, and Noc ordered her shackles removed. A lesser male began undoing her bindings, the huge creature lunging at the young yautja with every opportunity, but always countered by a sharp tug on a rope by one of the team. As soon as she was free of her fetters she lurched forwards with all of her strength, hard and fierce - a writhing, hating, screeching entity of hatred and instinct. The team worked in perfect unison to guide her from her pen, giving the ropes a little slack or keeping them taut where needed.

The easiest way to escort a queen was to always keep her slightly off-balance, and that made whoever held the ropes lashed around her neck and the grand sweeping comb that rose from her head like a crown, the most crucial members of the escort. Due to the weight of her head, and the fact that her tail barely counterbalanced that weight, a sharp tug could bring a queen stumbling forwards as she tried to regain her balance. A stiff, concerted pull would bring her down hard. Noc was pleased to see an old hunt-mate, Y'nthor, on the lead rope.

He led the team towards the seeder, opening the bay door to where the creature would be clamped in restraints in readiness for the journey to the surface. As if sensing that she was about to be fettered once more, the monstrous alien shrieked and twisted with all of her might. Two yautja were flung across the room, still clinging to their ropes. The sudden shift in weight on the ropes, and Y'nthor's swift actions, brought the creature down onto her left side before she could do any harm. The team gave each rope a little slack as the alien got back to her feet, and inexorably, inevitably, dragged her to her berth aboard the seeding craft, carefully securing her in, limb by limb.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x

To suit the needs of the elder, Phay'd, with a team of three veteran hunters, had taken a seeding transport to the surface of the planet out of fear that the elderly Dek'd'tor might not survive a pod-drop intact. Once disembarked, the craft auto-piloted back to the mothership, where Noc would be rounding up the kainde amedha for the seeding.

The planet was lush: tall, strong trees covered most of the surface, perfect for the chase and the ambush. At ground level, the fauna grew high and thick in exposed places, and petered out under the canopy of the jungle. The air hung heavy and humid, inducing one to sweat without effort. Each rolling bead of perspiration felt like a baptism to Phay'd.

The old yautja was standing before three veteran hunters. Each had their hand held out to the Dek'd'tor, who held a Klaatu ceremonial blade in his hand. Phay'd watched the instigation of the blessing ceremony carefully as the old one approached the first of the veteran hunters - a keen hunter, not much older than Phay'd himself, called Grimm. The elder took Grimm's hand and drew the blade of the Klaatu across the flesh of his palm before turning the hand over to face the ground. A few droplets of warm green blood dripped onto the mulch of the jungle floor: this first cut was made for honour. Grimm curled his hand into a fist, letting his freshly drawn blood ooze out between his fingers. The elder approached the next hunter, this one called Gryshh. The meat of the palm of his hand was sliced open also: the second drawing made for luck. Lastly, the ancient crossed to the last of Phay'd's team - a relatively young male, but well blooded and well bred, who stood tallest amongst the few gathered Dek'd'tor, pulled the blade across the tall-one's hand. The final cut represented sacrifice: the last in a sacred trinity of yautja virtues that would usher-in a worthy and magnificent hunt. The luminous blood of the three pooled at their feet as the ancient Yautja finished the blessing of the hunt in hushed words that Phay'd couldn't hear.

Creatures twittered and buzzed, cawed and hooted in the trees, and Phay'd felt himself becoming mildly amused as he thought how quiet this world would become after the seeding.

After a few moments the ancient Yautja turned to the three veteran hunters, first facing the tall one directly -Y'sharr his name was, Phay'd remembered - and bowed respectfully at them in turn, thanking them for the gift of their life blood to sanctify the ground beneath them. It was done; the hunt would bring glory

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Noc returned to his chamber aboard the mothership, and carefully selected his tools: hunt mask, which was almost entirely covered with etchings from his many, many hunts; ki'cti-pa: his barbed wrist-blade gauntlet; his favourite telescopic spear; throwing blades, and his Klaatu knife.

The wall before him was a mosaic of small moulded tableaux, all telling the story of his life from the moment of his blooding. He had been working on them for years now, but nearly a third of the wall remained uncovered, though he intended to finish the wall before he died. Once, he had briefly glimpsed a hologram that, before his sight had failed, the Dek'd'tor would study from time to time which was similar in nature to his mosaic wall, and saw a grand, epic story that spanned back many generations - a history of the yautja species that the Dek'd'tor was keeping alive. Though not prone to dreaming or flights of fancy, Noc wished that his life would be as celebrated as part of a Dek'd'tor's tale one day.

As the only ceremony he would personally undertake, Noc slowly affixed his mask to his face, marking the beginning of the hunt officially. With his tools in place, he turned, and headed out of the chamber, headed for his seeding craft.

He issued his final orders: the skeleton crew to be left aboard the mothership was to depart and survey the system for any valuable mineral or metal deposits on nearby planets and moons; the secondary seeders were to join him and the others at the predetermined coordinates on the equatorial continent for the hunt; the queen and a small guard would be left in her isolated basin to breed in peace.

The hunt groups were in place as Noc stepped aboard his craft. The door slid shut behind him, and small gaseous whine signalled that the seeder was airtight and pressurised. He walked among his fellow hunters, returning nods of respect as he passed, and took his place at the flight controls. The musk in the air began to grow, thick and cloying. Noc, too, couldn't help but grow excited; it had been so long since the last hunt, so long spent looking for an elusive world that would meet his needs…

He grasped the controls and released the clamps. The seeder began to drift slowly forwards until it was clear of its bay. Once clear, Noc activated the drive burn, and looped low under the belly of the mothership. He watched it peel away from its place in high orbit, seeing the tell-tale pale blue glow of the engines powering up...

….then the universe seemed to erupt around him. His craft was battered hard by some unknown force, throwing him and the other hunters around the inside of the tumbling seeder. Sparks spat from the pilot console, showering the hunters. Noc forced himself over tumbling bodies, desperately clawing his way back to the controls of the seeding craft. Out the viewport he could see the spinning world rising fast, and realised that his ship was completely out of control, and plummeting towards the ground…

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Phay'd's reverence for the Dek'd'tor was plain to see; he had been on the planet's surface for almost half a day, and had never ventured out of sight of the ancient yautja (the irony that the elder was completely blind was lost on Phay'd, who had no sense of humour, even for a yautja.) Y'sharr, Grimm and Gryshh had gone to explore the vicinity, either out of curiosity, or looking for some form of sport. Soon, he guessed, there would be trophies hanging from the trees, their heads or hides taken as prizes.

The elder seemed to be tiring; his withered body almost looked as if it was becoming more crooked with each passing moment, and Phay'd wondered if the Dek'd'tor would live long enough to return to the mothership. Not that it mattered now in the great scheme of things; with the blessings carried out, and the seeding preparations already under way, his function was now complete. But still… the Dek'd'tor carried within him a wealth of knowledge - a repository of a millennia - that Phay'd respected deeply. Truly learned yautja were few and far between.

The elder started suddenly, as if with fright, and cocked his head to one side, listening intently. Phay'd began to approach him, but was halted by the ancient, waving at him to stop and pointing at Phay'd's feet, which rustled the mulch on the ground with every step. The air seemed to hang heavy and oppressive all of a sudden. The twittering and cawing and chattering of the creatures in the trees had ceased. An unease uncharacteristic of the his species crept over them both. Despite his elder's objections, Phay'd moved to the Dek'd'tor's side, and set his vision mode to an all spectrum scan, from radio to gamma waves, infra-red to ultraviolet, looking intently all around him. But nothing broke the disquieting silence of the jungle.

Above, he could see the mothership in geo-synchronous orbit, the huge craft riding the extreme outer atmosphere. Small contrails began to stream away from it, heading in different directions. The seeding had begun.

A sudden raging howl filled the air - unmistakably yautja. Without thinking, Phay'd's wrist blades pistoned out of his gauntlet, and his shoulder cannon leapt from its cradle in his armour in readiness. The targeting reticule of his visor scanned the area as he made a slow, deliberate pass of the immediate vicinity. Another lusting roar echoed, followed by strange insectile noises, unlike anything Phay'd had ever heard. The Dek'd'tor's head turned from side to side, and Phay'd suddenly realised that they were surrounded. Something was closing in on their right, charging through the dense foliage. Noc let his shoulder cannon lock-on, prepared to blast whatever burst from the bush in half. He bent his knees slightly… curled his hands into fists…

It erupted from the flora and impacted against Phay'd hard enough to knock him to the ground. Something else shrilled highly and charged through the jungle to his left, hidden from view by the dense foliage. He pushed at the thing that lay over him, aware that it was tough, leathery and curiously wet. He looked at his hands and saw they were covered in blood which, in his unfiltered vision mode, looked a cool green.

The elder scented the air and growled blackly. Phay'd got to his feet and poked at the mangled thing at his feet with his spear. Indeed, the Dek'd'tor could smell Yautja blood; the remains at Phay'd's feet was a yautja torso from the navel up, headless and missing its left arm

Something had ripped this hunter to pieces.

To his great surprise Phay'd turned to see the elder begin climbing a tree. Had his mind not been preoccupied with current events, he would have been pleased that someone of the Dek'd'tor's grand age still retained some of their old vitality.

Another withering roar of a yautja rang out, followed by multiple blasts from a shoulder cannon. Phay'd immediately leap up the nearest tree, climbing quickly and easily. He crept out over a strong limb and rested on his haunches. From a clearing directly ahead of him he saw something move. He immediately locked-on and zoomed in: It was Y'sharr, laying on the ground trying to crawl into denser bush. Most of his left arm and leg were gone, so that the fallen, mortally wounded hunter couldn't even activate his self-destruct. One last roar filled the air: the great cry of a yautja in terrible pain, then died out suddenly and completely. Phay'd could only stare at the corpse of his hunt brother; he had never seen anything tear apart a yautja short of a vitriolic queen. A rustling in the tree beside him snapped him from his dull shock. He turned to see Gryshh de-cloak next to him, bleeding profusely from a wound in his right leg.

He wheezed something unintelligible between his heaving gasps for breath and reaching for the medical kit on his shoulder pack.

At the wounded hunter's touch it eased open, displaying many vital implements. Gryshh took a pincer tool with a white hot element glowing at its tip and set the jaws of the pincers on the edges of the gash on his leg. Next, he drew the pincers together, drawing the ripped flesh of his calf together at the searing element and started drawing it upwards, immediately cauterising the wound shut. His head and shoulders writhed with the pain, but the hunter barely made a sound through his agony.

Phay'd himself was still stunned at the sheer devastation wrought against Grimm and Y'sharr in such a short space of time. After a moment to let his pain quell, Gryshh dialled a command into the control pad upon his wrist, and a hologram leaped into the air: it showed a few short seconds of shaky and blurry footage of some strange insect creature trampling through the bush, snapping huge shearing jaws directly at the watchers. Zabin Amedha, Gryshh named it. A new and entirely separate species of hard meat, unknown on any world before now.

Phay'd looked with concern upon Gryshh, then cast his eyes to the sky. From his vantage point high in the jungle canopy he could see the seeders vectoring in on their respective seeding sites and had a sudden, awful realisation that every seeding craft would have to be forewarned as soon as possible about this unforeseen threat. This new hard meat. In the sky he could see the main seeder glide under the mothership, in readiness for its descent. The mothership began to peel away - probably headed elsewhere in the system as was often Noc's policy. Even though it was distant in the sky, he could still see the bluish glow of the engines firing up…

…Moments later the mothership exploded like a nova, and Phay'd watched helplessly as the blast wave smashed into the main seeder, knocking it into a endless spiralling plunge…


	3. Chapter 3: The Soldier

Chapter 3: The Soldier

"I've got aminos in the vapour trail, sir. Confirm?" Asked the Tech. The broad-shouldered man who stood next to him wearing the Federation insignia of a Field Marshal of the Mobile infantry peered at the readout. Highlighted onscreen in bright orange squares were the almost undetectable--less than one part per billion of the vapour trail--amino acids particles that the newly improved sensors aboard the _**Sentry of Eons **_keyed on. The modified sensors, at first a blessing for the ships scanning the sector, had become the bane of the Mobile infantry, since it had increased their workload tenfold. John Rico sighed.

"Confirm; It's a bug asteroid." He answered, before turning to the captain of the ship. "You don't need me to tell you that a bug asteroid takes precedent over your orders."

The captain, a squirrelly little man with a background as privileged as Rico's, bit his lip in momentary indecision, before seemingly shrugging off any protestations. "It's your call, Sir."

Despite his initial reservations when he first met the captain of the _**Sentry of Eons, **_and despite his small stature and puckered rodent-like face, Rico thought that the captain (he couldn't remember for the life of him the guy's name--an alarming occurrence that seemed to happen more and more often) was a good guy--Borderline bookish and a little officious, sure, but he knew when to bend the rules when the situation called for it. "Good." He said, turning to the helmsman. "Set a course. Follow that asteroid."

"Sir, it's already on our course." Said the Helmsman after dialling in a few commands.

"It's headed for 4C-H?"

"Directly on course, Sir. Judging by the spread of the trail it passed a while ago. Chances are it's already impacted. Maybe up to four months ago, Sir."

Rico slouched a little against the back of the Captain's console. His arms folded across his chest and his eyes fell to the floor vacantly, as they always did when he was in deep thought. It was good news and bad news: the planet designated 4C-H was their mission objective from the Federation, his platoon tasked to take out the suspected base of insurrectionist rebels hidden on the planet surface. He guessed that a bug infestation would have taken case of that expediently. But that still left Rico the task of kicking out the Arachnid. He sighed again; 41 years in the service and he was still chasing bugs.

He had accepted the rank of Field Marshal on the condition that he was still allowed to lead his men from the front, and not planted behind a desk like so many of his contemporaries (although, in fairness, most of them had lost a limb or two, and their plush desk job was usually a form of recompense--but only for the lifers.) Regrettably closer to sixty now than fifty, John--formerly Johnny--Rico felt age sink into his bones like dry rot. On days like this, when he let his mind drift to the past, he sometimes felt ten--twenty years older than he really was. Everyone he had known from his youth was dead--His Mom and Dad; Carmen; Carl; Ace; Diz; Hauser; Beck … All gone. And in every case the bug was responsible in one way or the other. Loss, the Mobile Infantry and the bug were the only constants in his life now.

"Continue on your course." He said. "I've got some bad news to give my troopers."

--

Ellis Rain shimmied over to the side of his bunk and peered over the edge at his bunkmate who was thoroughly engrossed in a book (the real old-fashioned kind, he noticed--with actual pages and everything), and, he guessed, deliberately ignoring him. "'Zumi, what're you reading?" he asked.

Azumi Kageshu played deaf, turning over a page and feigning absolute engrossment in the print. Rain, the clown of the platoon, wouldn't be discouraged so easily, and began repeating her name over and over again, like a tenacious child who was clinging onto some apparently earth shattering news to tell:

"'Zumi? 'Zumi? 'Zumi? 'Zumi? You hear me, 'Zumi?" He saw her jaw set a little harder and knew she was close to breaking point…. They always broke.

Finally, her hands dropped and her head whipped around to face him, her eyes drawn into a scowl. "WHAT!?" She barked.

"Whatcha reading?" He asked with the innocence of a child.

"Fuck you, Rain!" Azumi spat, and buried her face in the book again.

Knowing that he had already broken her, and knowing that her defences weren't up again already, he kept probing.

"Is it good?" He asked, beginning a barrage of questions. "Who wrote it? What's it about? Where'd you get it?"

"Rain! Give it a goddam rest, will ya!?" snapped someone from further down the communal sleeping quarters. "Azumi, just answer the sumbitch!" someone added.

Azumi sighed in resignation and held up the cover of the book to Rain, who squinted at it. "The forbidden passions of Alexa." He said, reading the title aloud. The cover showed a beautiful woman being lovingly held in the arms of a tall, ugly motherfucker of an alien or demon or something…. "…The hell's it about?"

"Nothing you would give a shit about, Ellis." She answered matter-of-factly.

"Come _on_…. _Tell_ me…."He pushed, sounding as whiney as possible.

"Goddam it!" Exclaimed Azumi. "It's a love story between a human girl and an alien warrior, okay?"

Rain's face twisted into a look of utter amusement and incredulity. "That…" he began, before deliberately pausing for effect, "…Is just about the goddam stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Well, you asked."

"Let it alone, Rain." Called a male voice to Rain's left. When he looked up he saw it was Poledouris, two bunks along. He had a head jack in one ear, and held the other in his hand, as if he had been listening in for a while. "Stop being a facetious shit, will you?" He added, before pressing the loose head jack back into his empty ear.

Rain, who would never turn down a chance to push someone over the edge as they teetered on the edge of cracking, decided Poledouris as a suitable new target--though he knew he was harder to break. "What are you listeni--"

"The meadow, from Peter and the Wolf." Said Poledouris before Rain could finish his question.

Undeterred, Rain prodded again. "Who's it--"

"Prokofiev."

"Who is--"

"A Russian composer."

"Where the hell--

"Where the great eastern empire is now."

Rain gave up the ghost; Poledouris was just too hard to break. He lay back on his pillows and put his hands behind his head. "Poledouris?" He said.

"Yeah?"

"You're a real shit sometimes."

"Thank you." Replied Poledouris, his smirk unseen by Rain.

"OFFICER ON DECK!" someone bawled from the entrance.

The entire platoon were out of their bunks and standing steadfastly to attention in no time "At ease, Roughneck two-zero." Ordered Rico as he stepped into the sleeping quarters. The ship's captain followed him in, closely flanked by a couple of two-zero's NonComs. The most famous platoon of the most famous battalion in the M.I., Rico's Roughnecks, relaxed their stances. John Rico cast his eyes over the rows of his troopers and liked what he saw: the keen glint of well trained and disciplined soldiers, something he saw less and less when he looked in the mirror. "Alright, Roughneck two-zero. We'll be hitting four-C in four hours. The federation are already claiming it as the new earth, so we've got to do a clean sweep before it can be declared fit for habitation. What should be a simple raging recce has turned into a raging shitstorm, though; it looks like we'll be facing bugs down there, people." He paused, feeling the atmosphere in the room change, although nobody said a word. "We'll be going down in one wave. Once we've echoed their caves, it'll be a standard sweep and nuke. If we find a brain bug I want it buried so fast it won't have time to think; Let's not let intelligence get their mitts on this place, people. Arm heavy. Arm fast. We've got a launch window of four hours before we hit dirt. Any questions? "

Rico's famed Roughneck two-zero said nothing.

"Alright. Move it, Roughnecks!" He ordered, trying to sound as keen as he did all those years ago when he first assumed command of the unit. Even to his own ears it sounded forced and phoney. He hoped nobody else noticed.

"HOO-AH!!"grunted his grunts, before setting off in readiness of the task ahead.

--

Rico turned and exited the room, wishing in his heart of hearts that he had accepted the training post at the newly established Colonial Marine Corps facility in Guam that he'd been offered (and had refused out of a sense of obligation to his unit) just days before he had reported to the Sentry of Eons.

Anything had to be better than chasing the goddam bugs all over the galaxy.

--

Most of Rico's troopers had a private little ceremony they would carry out before going into action, each knowing that even though the attrition rate had plummeted since the beginning of the great eradication, it was still a potentially deadly task that faced each and every one of them. They had the weapons, the will and the support to take on the Arachnid, but the bugs still had the numbers. On that you could always bet your bottom dollar: the bugs would always have an overwhelming advantage in numbers.

Rain, as was his wont, needed to find a victim for his little idiosyncratic ceremony. Preferably female if he could help it. Azumi was probably still pissed at him, so that ruled her out. DeFontaine was a real nut buster who took shit from no one ("probably as dyke" was how he preferred to explain her inexplicable disinterest in him) and was liable to kick him in the balls as soon as look at him (and he liked his balls just the way they were thankyouverymuch….), so that left Pharaoh. Secretly told, He preferred Pharaoh out of all the chicks in two-zero, and hesitated for a moment in light of what he was about to do to her. Then again, it had worked like a charm this far hadn't it? He was still alive and kicking (ass) so there had to be some validity to his little ritual. He had done it (admittedly wrecked on the finest Czech 'synth) by accident to a chick in a bar on the night before he had left for basic, and had carried on doing it (as an in-joke at first) on the eve of every major action he was going to undertake. It had just kind of stuck after that, though how he was still in the mobile infantry, he had no idea; He had seen people subjected to administrative punishment for far less.

He approached Pharaoh, who was crouched beside her bunk reassembling her M22 assault rifle. So far, so good and so far, unnoticed, Rain popped the clip holding his pants up and grabbed the waistband in readiness…

--

From four bunks down Azumi spied what Rain was about to do (son of a bitch had got her twice) and tapped on Poledouris' shoulder. "Watch this. " She said somewhere between amusement (and relief it wasn't her this time) and disgust.

"Watch what?" Asked Poledouris, pulling on his fatigues. Azumi pointed to Rain, who was in the process of pulling his pants down behind a still-oblivious Pharaoh. "That guy really is an asshole." He observed.

Azumi snorted with laughter. "And speaking of assholes.." She quipped.

--

Had Pharaoh not seen the murky reflection of his ass approaching in the gun oil coating the polished barrel of her weapon, she might have gotten a shock. Thus, forearmed with the knowledge and a big fuckin' machine gun, and without batting an eyelid, she merely stated: "If you want to find out if gun oil is a satisfactory replacement for lube, just keep that ass coming, Rain"

Rain halted where he was, bare ass just inches from Pharaoh's head. His Pre-prepared speech ("Get a good look at this ass, babe. You can bet yours that this one'll be coming back intact!") seized in his throat and he peered over his shoulder at Pharaoh. From across the room someone cried: "Do it, Pharaoh!". Someone else shouted: "Yeah, he likes it in the ass!". Rain, with his ass still hanging out, flicked his eyes across the room looking for the culprit, as if, when he found the sucker, it would draw a little heat from him. But since every eye in the room was already on him (and willing Pharaoh to carry out her threat, he would have bet) he guessed that this time he had to concede that he was well and truly busted.

"Well, big boy. What's it gonna be?" Asked Pharaoh. Rain felt his cheeks (just the ones on his face, he hoped) flush hot, and realised that the ritual humiliation he had intended for Pharaoh had backfired on him. All he could do for a few moments was blink, searching for something… anything… to say. "Okay.." Sighed Pharaoh, "Barrel first?" she asked, and began rising to her feet. By the time she had stood up, Rain was ten feet away still desperately wrestling his pants up from around his ankles while the rest of roughneck Two-Zero laughed, guffawed, sniggered and giggled at him.

--

Poledouris and Azumi enjoyed Rain's brief abject humiliation. The whole room laughed harder as he slinked into the lavatories, but it wasn't long before the usual apprehensive atmosphere settled on them again. She watched Poledouris silently prepare himself. At something just over 6' 4" he was almost a foot taller than her. He had began balding young, so always kept his dark hair closely cropped. His shoulders and chest were broad; his frame well muscled, but not overly so--a specimen of the federation's ideal soldier (physically at least; he possessed more smarts than the bureaucrats usually like in their grunts) who could have taken a year out of active duty to join the recruitment corps and be come the face of the mobile infantry. The offer had been there, and an express route to citizenship which boosted the prospects of him finding the teaching job that he wanted. He had turned it down on principle (which had set alarms ringing within the recruitment corps, who now considered his refusal as a near miss rather than a unfortunate knock back), feeling that he had to earn his citizenship, just like every other grunt in the M.I.

Azumi's name betrayed her ancestry, although she didn't look Japanese at all. Her blonde hair came down to her jaw, where it bobbed in to her oval face (which, apart from her smooth skin, was the only indication of her true heritage). She had just scraped through selection into the M.I on account of her height by only two sixteenths of an inch, but had proven herself headstrong and wilful during her training, which led to an offer of promotion to Sergeant on her first posting after basic. She, too, had turned down the offer on principle, feeling that, as a NonCom, she would have to put up with the same shit daily, only it would come from two directions now: above and below. Like Poledouris, she had only signed on for four years service just to earn her citizenship. That way the federation would pay for her education, and she could sit her detective exams.

She thumbed the finger scanner on her locker, pulled it from its recess in the wall beside her bunk, and began to suit up. The light breathable fabric of her combat fatigues still smelled like old sweat, no matter how much she washed them (Rain always joked it was the smell of fear--there might be a grain of truth in it, she thought. But if it was true, that guy's pits must be terrified.) Since the sexes were equal in almost everything these days, everything but the toilets were communal: Showers; changing rooms; sleeping quarters. So it was without embarrassment that Azumi stripped right down until she was in nothing but her underwear (though she saw Poledouris' half-hidden glimpse, but didn't mind in the least) and pulled the unflattering kit onto her svelte, slender frame: T-shirt, black; standard issue pants (with optional hold-up suspenders), grey; standard issue tube socks, black; and standard issue boots, also black. Nobody could ever accuse the Mobile Infantry of being flamboyant. The armour could wait; it was unyielding when on, and hurt her chest. If it wasn't such a practical piece of apparatus, she was sure she would leave the damn stuff behind, but it had saved her more than once, so she had agreed to compromise with herself.

Something had been stirring in her gut for the last half-hour now. Something she usually chose to ignore as pre-action nerves. This time it felt different. She sat down on the edge of her bunk and rested her head in her hands. Instinct was never a thing she was ever big on, but as a wannabe detective she was trying hard to listen to it when it came calling (Or maybe she had just watched too many cop shows; she was sure keen deduction skills were far more important and practical than something as vague as instinct.) Now her instincts were telling her something she didn't like. Poledouris noticed. He squatted down onto his haunches before her, waiting for her to notice him. "Don't eyeball me, P. " She said. "I can feel you watching me"

Poledouris ignored her pig-headedness. "You okay?"

"No."

"Come on. What's wrong?"

Azumi let her hands flop to her knees and let her body slump forwards a little. She looked around the room at nothing in particular and sighed, long and slow. "It's okay, P; it's nothing.."

"You know I know you better than that." Said Poledouris, maintaining eye contact with her. Azumi sighed slowly again and fixed him with a sincere look.

"I just have a bad feeling about this. " She said.

--

The first man that Rico had lost in command had been during basic. It was a stupid mistake of an over zealous kid that had cost a fellow recruit his life and nearly cost Rico his career. Only the obliteration of his home town, Buenos Aires, by a bug meteor and the turning of a few blind eyes to his dishonourable resignation had kept him in the M.I. He was still grateful to this day that his training instructor--a brick shithouse of a man called Zimm--had torn up Rico's signed and sealed discharge papers. And to this day he still considered Zimm a true Hero of the Federation, even though it was nearly twenty years to the day since the bugs finally got him (for which he was awarded the Federation Star--a soldier's highest honour--posthumously, since his self sacrifice had saved a unit and nuked a bug bolt-hole at the same time.) But Zimm was just another name on the long list of people Rico had once known, now dead. He had lost count of the amount of troopers he had lost under his command when it reached treble figures, and that grim milestone had passed many, many years ago. What vexed him even more was that he had known so few of their names. He was certain that if he visited the cenotaph in Rio, that he would recognise fewer than thirty of the seventeen million-plus names engraved into the dark granite.

Thirty. Out of what? five, six hundred? A thousand maybe?

He glared into the mirror at his reflection, the razor in his hand poised only an inch from his lathered face, as it had been for the last few minutes as he daydreamed introspectively into his past and what-ifs and might-have-beens. He gazed at his reflection, seeing only a late middle-aged man who had somehow survived long past his dues--Outliving a wife who had never fought in the wars, but was murdered in her sleep by a Rage addict who was robbing the house while Rico was on duty on Felaxa. He couldn't even make it home for the burial. Her family had laid her to rest in the Cedarvine cemetery in San Angeles while Rico was still light years away and in the deepest, darkest depression of his life. And although he had returned home many times since, he had never set foot back in the Confederate Republic of Western America, let alone San Angeles. She, his wife since he was twenty-nine, was now committed to that griefless place in the back of his mind, just one more face among many others.

He knew a reckoning would come one day, the counting of the cost would be an all consuming flood that would sweep him away with it. If he was lucky he might even survive it; if he was blessed he could even have a marble or two rolling around afterwards.

John Rico saw the end coming. And feared it.

--

The _**Sentry of Eons **_punched through the void of space, headed for the Epsilon Eridani solar system and its subtropical satellite designated 4-CH. The first surveyors of the system were elated to find a planet that so closely resembled earth. Its atmosphere was virtually identical; the average global temperature was just three degrees above the earth mean, but the high humidity and masses of convection systems ranging out from its vast, warm oceans prevented it from becoming a dried out shrivelled rock like Mars. It was a dream come true to the cadres of exoplanetary scientists, who wanted to study and formulate and speculate about the planet and its formation (inadvertently reopening the debate between the Darwinists and the creationists in the process, each arguing that the planet validated their beliefs beyond dispute.) The Federation had declared it a sister planet to Earth, and though many names had been bandied around, nothing had stuck yet, so the lush, verdant world had been left with only its designation. Its location, deep within the Phaestian cluster made it Mankind's most remote outpost though, in truth, they hadn't even made it out of the galaxy's spiral arm. In a few short decades the world would be restructured to the Federation's wishes, with cities and industry making the most of the untouched world and its pristine supply of raw materials--especially its rich titanium deposits, which would prove invaluable to the military. Eventually, the world would become a new staging post for excursions deeper into the galaxy. Who knew what lay beyond?

At least that had been the plan, until the Sentry had picked up those damn aminos in the vapour trail. Now it was more complicated. The Federation had simply cut its losses on many potentially profitable worlds due to the severity of their bug infestations, and had simply nuked them clean, making them inhospitable for just about anything.

Within the Federation there was a few dissenting voices regarding 4C-H. The war with the bug had unexpectedly become a war of attrition, with the Federation's Xenobiologists estimating that the bugs could--given the right conditions--breed two Arachnids for every one lost. The Mobile Infantry were not so prolific. Although it was loath to admit it, the Federation was beginning to crumble. Its hold over peoples lives were loosening, and in some quarters, people were looking to their own futures without the shadow of the Federation's approval looming over them. Recruitment was at an all-time low. Fleet had suffered similar downturns. Only the new colonial marine units seemed to buck the trend.

Now, with its bug infestation, 4C-H would become a real bone of contention back on Earth. But the Federation saw the establishment of this 'New Earth' as a crucial step to restoring its former glory. A new colony would bring new challenges, and a brave new world would lift the morale of the public, make them feel like part of mankind's greatest adventure. That made the remote new world invaluable, far beyond its practical worth.

The Sentry of Eons punched through space towards 4C-H. The original mission had not changed; only the enemy. And this pristine new world, this unifying symbol of Man's spirit and ingenuity…

It was about to become a battleground.

--

Rico had set his roughnecks into four squads. First squad, under Sergeant Keever would hit dirt first and entrench themselves into the valley floor which offered the only real escape route to the bug. Second and third squads would guard the flanks of Rico's Fourth squad, eventually chaining together and encircling the area identified as bug city--the deep maze of tunnels and burrows that would prove irresistible to the Arachnid. From there a precision Orbit-to-surface tactical strike would zap the nest, and the roughnecks would mop up the stragglers.

That was the plan at least; the bugs had a unique way of defying predictability, so any battle plan had to have room for improvisation.

Such was on his mind when his fourth squad embarked on the drop ship. He watched his roughnecks stow their rail-guns and M22 'Blazer' automatics before taking their seats. That strange mix of emotions was written on their faces, but Rico could still see the grit that had been ground into them during their time in the roughnecks. Even to this day he was still proud of his unit, no matter how many times the faces changed.

He stowed his own blazer in its cradle beside the command chair in the rear, but remained standing as the last of his troopers took their places. "Roughneck two-zero! We got some bugs in a place they're not welcome. We got some big fuckin' guns and a big fuckin' problem! What're we going to do?" He barked.

"Destroy!" his squad cried in zealous unison.

"I can't hear you, Maggots! What're we going to do?"

"DESTROY!!"

"Roughneck two-zero, you wanna live forever?" Rico cried, building zeal in himself and his troops.

"HELL, NO!!"

"And who do we tell the bugs they got their asses kicked by?!"

"Rico's Roughnecks!"

"WHO?!"

"RICO'S ROUGHNECKS!!"

He cast his eyes over the squad and allowed himself a satisfied smirk. "Damn right."

Rico took his seat at the hatch and gave the dropship pilot a firm thumbs-up. The padded braces descended from the ceiling, pinning each trooper to their seat and securing them from any hard knocks or bumps; nobody wanted to hit dirt bruised and battered. Or worse.

The dropship rocked slightly as the Sentry's couplings detached. This was always the moments his stomach lurched a little--the moment it became real. But he was secretly glad he still had that moment of doubt and fear; the moment he stopped feeling it would probably be the moment he had finally gone cuckoo-shit. Then again, with all the things he had seen in his life, could anybody blame him? Hadn't he earned that right?

His dogtags floated up to meet him, free of the Sentry's gravity field. He tucked them back under his armour, aware that he should have double checked that he had nothing loose on his person that could potentially cause harm to himself or another during the drop (as dictated by the Federation's M.I. recruit handbook); he'd seen someone's eyeball skewered by a loose pen in free drop before, and didn't wish to repeat the mistake.

The silent fall through empty space ended abruptly when the dropship hit the atmosphere, filling the craft with the roar of the white hot flames that licked the exterior. This was the most crucial part of the drop (besides a decent landing, he reminded himself); hit atmo too shallow, and the ship would bounce and skip back out into space; hit at too deep an angle, and it would burn up into cinders. And though he had only heard of a drop going to shit like that once in his life, he was still a little wary; the young ensign in the pilot's seat did look awfully green and wet behind the ears.

Of the sixty troopers in his squad there was only two new faces. They were young, too, and looked like they came from money. They had the same look in their eyes, the same rebellious tenacity that had driven Rico to enlist in the M.I. a lifetime ago.

"We're through the exosphere!" called the pilot.

"Good" Replied Rico. "You've got your coordinates; just make sure we don't get creamed by bug plasma!" Bug plasma (its unofficial name; its real one was unpronounceable to most people without a hand full of doctorates) was a danger to almost everything in orbit. Fired into orbit by the so-called 'tanker bugs' that looked like huge beetles, the plasma clusters contained millions of very well protected grubs that were fired intentionally towards passing asteroids. The scientific community were still at odds over Doctor Zhera Stone's theory that the bugs could feel the gravitic and magnetic effects of passing asteroids, since it was proven that the bug had a seventy-six percent success rate at bulls-eyeing them. Besides from acting as a perfect means for dissemination of a species throughout the quadrant, the roiling balls of plasma also served the bugs well as weapons against ships in orbit. The threat it posed to ships could not be overestimated; Rico had seen massive interstellar warships cut in half by bug plasma. A puny little dropship would just evaporate. Even though he had dropped thousands of times, he was still aware that all it took was for one bug to get lucky, and it was all over. Sayonara, adios and thanks for playing, Johnny Rico.

A blond haired trooper with a pretty oval face piped up, snapping Rico out of his daydream. "Permission to speak, Sir?"

Rico nodded. "Permission granted, trooper."

"Kageshu, Sir. Sir, I was wondering… They say you fought on Klendathu…"

"That's right."

"Something always struck me as odd. Sir. I've watched the old reports on bug war one, and they say that Klendathu was on the other side of the galaxy. But we've hardly made it out of the quadrant, Sir. Why would the federation lie to people?"

"To maintain order."

"Sir?"

Rico looked around the room, searching for a delicate way to spill the Federation's big black lies that they had fed to the public all those years ago. The beginning seemed as good a place as any to start. "Back in the day we didn't have the capability to track every incoming bug meteor. So, starting in sixty-two the egg-heads began charting the course of the incoming meteors so they could work out their trajectory and do something about it--This is all before the colonisation of Pluto and Charon, so people were paranoid that the meteors were coming from the kuiper belt, which was just being observed properly for the first time. Death cults started cropping up everywhere, and the doomsayers found themselves getting popular again, saying that the end was coming, and that the bugs that landed on earth were God's wrath, and so on… " He observed the room, and found that every eye was on him now, drawn into his true tale of intrigue that would have landed him in hot shit up to his neck if he had told it just twenty years ago. "Now, according to the history texts you and I all grew up with, the first ship to discover Klendathu was the _**Thor**_. Half true. It was the first _ship _to rendezvous with Klendathu. The fact is it had been detected by a golden-oldie probe called Voyager-one, decades before. But the gain on the antenna of the thing was so shitty that we didn't pick its signal up until nearly fifty years later."

"Voyager-one?" asked a broad shouldered trooper that sat next to Kageshu. "But that's impossible; they picked it up near Alpha Centauri. It's on display in Rio. I've seen it."

"That's right. " Said Rico, waiting for somebody to work it out. Not surprisingly it was the shoulder guy again.

"Are you telling us that Klendathu is one of the planets orbiting Alpha Centauri?"

Rico smiled and nodded. "Gold Star, trooper. Klendathu was one of our next door neighbours. Just one system over."

Kageshu shook her head in puzzlement. "I still don't get it, Sir. Why lie?"

"Like I said before: To maintain order. People were worried that the bug might get a foothold in the sector, not knowing that we'd been neighbours for millennia. When people panic, people get stupid, and with bug meteors hitting us at an average rate of something like one every three years--but don't quote me on that--the people needed reassuring. So they cooked up a story."

"Propaganda..." Said Shoulders.

"Have no illusions, trooper." Rico finished.

Rain, one of the few troopers in his squad whose name he could remember, seemed to be in a hushed dispute with a fellow trooper. He was one of those guys that spoke before he thought but was otherwise a good soldier. Somehow Rico guessed that Rain, as was usual, was about to say something grossly inappropriate. When the trooper that was arguing with him threw up their hands in defeat, Rico knew for certain it was coming.

"Sir?" Asked Rain, deliberately adopting the tone of a curious schoolboy.

"Yes, trooper?"

"Can I ask, what happened to you in the marauder programme?"

The atmosphere suddenly seemed to solidify in the small compartment in the back of the drop ship. Here and there troopers shook their heads with embarrassment. Others looked at Rico in earnest, waiting for as candid a reply as he had given Kageshu. Rico hesitated. His eyes dropped to the floor as the memory of his last engagement with the Marauder unit swamped his senses.

Foolish. Arrogant and foolish to believe that they had wiped out the bug. With every engagement in the marauders the intelligence guaranteed it was the last bug stronghold--one last hole to smoke them out of--and every time, there was more… the price had been a life too far for Rico…

He smiled. Wan and bitter, and plainly obvious, but it stopped the true regret and grief from consuming him. "You can ask, trooper." Was his only reply.

The one that Rain had been arguing with earlier gave him a quick elbow dig in the guts, and before long they were arguing quietly again.

Rico's earpiece buzzed in his ear, before Sergeant Keever--the leader of first squad--began speaking: "This is Kilo-one to Roughneck leader. Do you copy?"

Rico keyed the mike built into his helmet. "Copy, Sergeant. What's your status?"

"We're down, Sir. Gun emplacements are ready and we are entrenching."

"Very good, Sergeant. Hold your position. You know the rest. If we need you before the TAC strike I'll let you know. Over and out."

"Sixty seconds!" Shouted the pilot.

--

Beside the feeling that her stomach was riding up into her throat--a unique sensation caused by the drop--Azumi felt that bad feeling in her gut growing. She began to wonder if her mother had been right, and that maybe she did possess a touch of the 'Gift'. Even if she did, she was in no way powerful enough to join the intelligence corps; that was for the serious 'voyants. Of course, not every mission went to shit when she had the sensation, but something told her to pay attention to it this time.

Poledouris was watching her again, and she realised that consternation must be written all over her face. She forced a smile and gave a purposefully chirpy thumbs-up. He gave her a curt nod, silently imbued with words of reassurance. She could have kissed him at that moment.

Rain--even after his facetious little episode with the C.O. seconds earlier, and despite the fact that he was arguing with Stihlman again--was trying to look nonchalant, but the way his fingers kept grasping at the material of his fatigues betrayed everything about his state of mind. And the way his eyes seemed distant….glazed. Azumi seriously doubted that Rain had imagination enough to be a dreamer, but she could see he was lost in his thoughts, probably playing out possible scenarios of what might happen when they touched down, just like her. And despite his easy front, he was scared, just like her. Guys like Rain, who wilfully alienated everyone around them, never left themselves with any kind of support network in their lives. People like him, devoid of friends or family to confide or take comfort in, usually swallowed a bullet before they hit forty…

As she continued to ponder on Rain's future, her weight suddenly doubled… trebled due to the inertia of the retro-boosters. That could only mean one thing:

It was time.

--

The retros fired, and Rico's thoughts, doubts and fears, his nostalgic memories and regrets faded at once, wiped away by clean, sharp command logic.

The lander smoothed off, the drop braces retracted, and Rico was on his feet barking orders even before the hatch had opened. "Okay, Roughnecks, you know your job! Kick ass!"

A smattering of his troopers responded with various affirmations, while the rest pulled their weapons and headed for the hatch. Rico snapped his own BLAZER out of its stow and hopped out of the dropship, his men following closely behind.

The area was a sea of green knee-high grass, but offered the best visibility towards the nest. Rico knew that once his squad made it into the dense bush ahead, their chances of survival plummeted sharply.

He set his squad into double ranks, thirty abreast, and began marching. From the south he saw second squad's dropship rise from behind the tree line and start its ascent back towards the _**Sentry of Eons**_. There was no sign of third squad to the north yet--no engine noises, no gunshots. Nothing. In order for Rico's fourth squad to hook up with second squad, he would have to continue their westward drive and hope that third squad would light a fire under their asses and catch up pronto. It was a lesser of two evils that meant that if third squad were cut off, at least second and fourth could consolidate their efforts, rather that waiting for stragglers and potentially leave the whole damn unit vulnerable.

"Keep the pace; don't bunch up." He ordered.

They advanced onwards, aware of how silent this lush world was. There was no birdsong; no amphibian croaks or buzzing insects. Eerie. Nothing but the sound of the breeze through the grass. When Rico's comm buzzed in his ear, he started a little. "Roughneck leader: Be aware that third squad are just beginning their drop due to a technical issue. Over."

Rico keyed his mike, muttering at himself for his jangling nerves. "Roger, Sierra-echo-one. Adjust their debarkation point to suit. Zero in on my signal and--"

"CONTACT!!" yelled someone from the south end of the line. Through the trees swarmed hundreds of scuttling Arachnids--six-legged insectoid creatures that stood nearly ten-feet high, with huge shearing mandibles like the stag beetles of earth that were capable of tearing a man to pieces in one bite. The silent world erupted with inhuman shrieks and withering gunfire. Rico levelled his Blazer at the forest and squeezed the trigger. When the clip run dry he keyed his mike again. "Just get roughneck three to fucking ground!" he ordered.

With the deeply ingrained discipline he demanded of all his troopers, Rico's Squad began moving forwards as one. Slowly, inexorably, they drove forwards, watching the bugs fall before them. Tens of thousands of rounds of searing explosive tipped rounds spewed from the blazers of Rico's squad into the wave of seething Arachnid. The rail gunners on the flanks chose their targets, bringing down rocky outcroppings and entire trees onto the scuttling insect hordes. Before they knew it, fourth squad were entering the forest, but the sheer destruction wrought slowed them considerably. The troopers climbed over blasted and felled trees, over smoking Arachnid carcasses and terrain that was slick with bug blood. For the moment it seemed they had done enough. The wave of Arachnid petered out, with only the odd probing attack on the flanks. Rico watched in bizarre amusement as a bug slipped from behind a cluster of fallen boulders and charged straight at a rail gunner. Bad move. Within moments the bug was reduced to a rain of dull green blood by the rail blast. There probably wouldn't be enough of the bug left to fill an ammo pouch now.

The air hung acrid with the smell of burning sap-rich trees. The smell of cooking meat that came from the bug carcasses always turned Rico's stomach sour with its foul, cloying oiliness that clung to the back of the throat for hours, while at the same time reminding him of lobster.

From the south, the distant static crackle of intense gunfire rang through the trees, and he was sure he could see muzzle flashes here and there. Noticing that they were not as impeded as his squad, he keyed in Second squad's freq and informed Lieutenant Dalray to hold their position. If third squad didn't hit dirt soon he was going to have to improvise; have Second link up with first and drive north by the western side of the nest while Rico's fourth squad took the east and closed a northwards pincer. Any remaining bugs would be driven into the nest and nuked, but it would be a hard fight.

At least, he reminded himself, that was the plan… if it came to that.

As the ground became more traversable, Rico ordered his squad onwards again. The gunfire was sporadic now; the bugs, for the moment at least, seemed to have retreated into their nest, probably just to consolidate their numbers. The damn bugs were smarter than anyone would give them credit for; it was another fact he had to keep reminding himself of in the face of such an inhuman enemy.

For the moment, with the bugs driven underground again, his plan was still intact, and the timing couldn't be better. He watched as third squad's dropship plummeted through the cloud cover, before being swallowed again by the thick canopy overhead. He dialled in their freq and contacted their leader. "Troutman. Double time it to your minimum safe point and hold; you shouldn't meet much resistance."

"Copy, Romeo-one. Sorry we're late."

Rico checked the nava-com position. Four hundred yards from the nest. Perfect. He halted his squad, dialled the Sentry and ordered the TAC-nuke drop. To refer to it as a nuke was technically an anachronism since it was actually a miniature laser-guided hydrogen bomb. Not that anyone cared for the semantics of it; A carp was a fish and a trout was a fish, and a bomb was a nuke. As long as the bugs were vapour afterwards, who gave a shit, right?

With the coordinates locked-in it would take only seconds for the supersonic shell to smash deep into the nest. But as always with the bug, those few seconds could turn an assault on its head. The bugs began probing again, as if they could sense that once the humans stopped, it was time to haul ass before someone lit a fire under it.

Then it came, the sound that was like music to his ears: A high-pitched whine that would drive dogs apeshit if they heard it. The silver streak punched into the ground before the eye could really register it. The ground trembled dully underfoot. Then, like an earthquake the ground shuddered hard, and the troopers fought to maintain their balance. The forest floor ahead of them swelled like a giant bubble, before collapsing back in on itself. Chasms split like hairline fractures on the face of the planet, shooting out from the bombed out nest like tributaries to the sea. The vast labyrinths of tunnels were being burned out one by one by the power of the bomb--an inferno that burned so hard it split the oxygen atoms from the very air to fuel its firestorm. There wasn't much that could survive down there, but the fact of the matter was that nobody knew how far the tunnels ran. The echo surveyor was accurate to within a meter, but Rico has seen full sized arachnids squeeze through gaps barely big enough for him. Inevitably, there could always be survivors. He ordered all three assaulting squads forwards, picking off a straggler here and there, most missing a leg or two to begin with, before they came together at a smoking crater, littered with bug limbs, where the heart of the nest used to be.

"Bug Bomb!" someone wryly commented behind Rico.

--

Azumi and Poledouris glared at Rain, thoroughly unamused. He seemed to notice and looked around for anybody who found his comment as funny as he did. "What? He asked. "What?"

The pit of her stomach gnarled still, telling her that the sweep wasn't as straight forward as it had so far proven to be. The Field Marshall was talking to Lieutenant Dalray and Sergeant Troutman, and none of them exactly looked relaxed, though she could see a certain cautious satisfaction... except for Troutman, maybe, who looked a little embarrassed and brow-beaten.

A trooper inspecting the crater nudged a jagged arachnid limb that jutted out of the ruin with the barrel of his gun. When it nudged back, he and another dozen troopers pumped a torrent of hot lead into the offending limb and the surrounding area.

"Knock it off!!" Ordered the Field Marshal, looking genuinely pissed. The troopers, as ordered, stopped firing.

It was then that Azumi noticed how intently the officers were watching the horizon in the west. And when the gunfire beside her stopped, everyone could hear the distant sound of heavy sustained fire from the direction of first squad--something unexpected from a squad that only had a supporting role in the assault. Whatever was going on over there, it had set the Field Marshal Rico on edge. He issued orders to his officers that she wasn't privy to, and watched with a growing sense of dread as second and third squads turned and began to head north to the extraction point behind their respective leaders. Fourth squad--her squad--were left standing beside the nuked out nest. From the look on the Field Marshal's face, their next task wasn't going to be pleasant, and she felt a strange kind of vindication for the sensation in her gut all this time.

Here it comes, she thought.

"Fourth squad, Listen up!" Ordered C.O. Rico. "First squad's communications have been cut off, and I don't like the sounds coming from their position. We're going to head Southwest and hook north again to avoid their crossfire and try to prevent driving anymore bugs onto them. Eyes and ears open, Troopers. Do you get Me!?"

"We get you, Sir!" Answered fourth Squad.

Azumi felt her heart sink, along with her projected chances of survival.

--

They had been lucky so far--Rico knew that much. Third and Fourth squads hadn't lost a single man yet. Second had one KIA and two walking wounded. Now, by the sounds of it, First squad were having no such luck. The fighting in the west had raged for nearly an hour but had gone quiet in the last ten minutes. Rico hoped that it was because Keever had brought the situation under control, since his squad still had lots of tricky terrain to cover before they could offer any kind of assistance, but found himself fearing the worst. It wouldn't have been the first time he had seen an entire squad wiped out.

After a tricky climb up a gully face that was steeper than Rico had predicted, he led his men into the valley that Keever was supposed to have cut-off. The smell of burning wood and ionised gasses filled the air. The walls of the valley soon began to rise steeply, and the ground began to dip sharply, rounding an outcropping into a blind drop. Rico signalled for his men to stay quiet, and not to bunch up in what was becoming a dangerous bottleneck.

Thick black smoke hung in the valley like a veil, drowning out the sunlight, and Rico became aware of a smell filling his nostrils that could only spell bad news. He had seen too many slaughters on the battlefield to hope he was wrong. The aroma of blood and sweat and cordite from spent bullets… the strange odour he had nicknamed the 'inside-out' smell, which was usually accompanied by screaming, writhing troopers, desperately trying to push their guts back into the gaping wounds they spilled from, or eviscerated corpses with their innards trailing away from them… it was the same odour he had experienced when his uncle had shot and gutted a Deer when Rico was a kid, one he would never be allowed to forget. Only here, in this place it was thicker, fouler and more pungent.

"Sir, you better take a look at this!" cried a trooper to his right. It was Shoulders again.

--

Poledouris prodded the thing with the barrel of his blazer, assured that he had just witnessed its death rattle. When it didn't move anymore he allowed himself to inspect it a little closer.

"Is it some kind of new bug?" Azumi asked.

"What's going on?" Asked Rico as he approached.

Poledouris hooked the barrel of his Blazer through its many legs and lifted it for all to see. The creature was perhaps the size of a cat, with eight bizarrely finger-like legs and a flat, wide body that tapered down to a serpentine tail. Nobody could make out eyes or a mouth.

"Some kind of new spider bug?" Queried Azumi again.

Everyone quietly gathered around Poledouris, scrutinising his peculiar find. Rico approached, getting up close and personal with the thing hanging from Poledouris' gun barrel. With his face just inches away from the thing, he pointed to two holes in its rear flank. "Bullet holes." He remarked. "Looks like--" He added, then abruptly ordered "Drop it, Trooper. Now!"

Poledouris flicked it from the gun barrel as ordered. Someone close exclaimed with panic for a moment, then screamed.

"Jesus Christ!!" cried Kathu, gritting his teeth and grasping his arm. "What the fuck!?" Everyone watched in horror and bewilderment as small splash shaped flecks on Kathu's forearm began to dissolve away his skin and eat into his flesh.

"Medic!" ordered Rico.

"Jesus… 'Douris" said Azumi. "Your gun. Look at your gun."

Poledouris lifted the tip of the barrel and watched it bubble and seethe and pit, corroding before his very eyes. "Fuck me, it bleeds acid?!" he exclaimed.

"You splashed me, asshole!" barked Kathu. Poledouris, looking a little guilty, could only gesture an apology.

Azumi's gut instinct crashed to rock bottom. There was something very wrong on this world.

"We're moving on." Ordered the C.O. "Let's go."

Kathu, still fighting the pain, stood. His right arm was in a sling leaving him only good one arm. The attending Medic handed Kathu his sidearm, and took the heavy machine gun from him, generously offering to carry it for his injured colleague. They set off at a trot to catch up with the rest of the squad. Azumi and Poledouris glared at the strange dead thing apprehensively before jogging off to take up their positions within the squad.

--

Rico led his men deeper into the valley, aware that the ground had began to climb again. They rounded a southerly crook, where the wind rolled up the valley, and helped clear the smoke filled air and aid their vision. Scattered bodies lay everywhere. Mostly Arachnid, but it was plain that First squad had taken a hammering too. Human body parts dotted the valley floor, and crimson blood caked the rocky walls in splatters and thick arcing jets.

From ahead, black smoke rose from dying fires. And to his great relief, he could see survivors through the miasma. Someone shuffled through the smoke, levelling their gun at Rico's fourth squad. "Easy, trooper…" Said Rico, trying to sound as soothing as possible.

"Sir…?" Asked the beleaguered Roughneck.

"What's your name, Son?"

The trooper dropped his blazer to his waist, but kept his finger on the trigger, Rico noticed. "Jansen, Sir. Earl, J. 539352."

Rico surveyed the carnage around him. "Where's your Commanding Officer, Jansen?"

"That would be me, Sir. I assumed command after… after…"

"Is sergeant Keever dead?"

"I don't know." Answered Jansen. Rico could see the kid was trembling… scared and confused. The honesty in his eyes only made his answer more cryptic.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I just… we.." Jansen stammered, close to breaking point, "…it's hard to explain, Sir. It would be easier to show you."

Jansen led fourth squad past the carnage, to where what was left of first were helping to patch each other up. Smoking wreckage lay strewn across a large area. And it was that had crashed, it was no Federation ship. The dark hull of the strange craft was riddled with .70 calibre bullet holes. "What is this?" Asked Rico.

Jansen didn't answer, but instead beckoned for Rico to follow. "I'll get to that, Sir. It'll just be easier to start at the beginning." They carried on, past more injured and dead troopers, though, interestingly, the Arachnid corpses had mostly petered out. They passed a young, sallow trooper propped up against a rock, whose face was half covered by blood swelled field dressings. The injured soldier got to his feet and proudly (and painfully, Rico noticed) saluted as he passed. Rico returned the salute solemnly, acutely aware that it felt meaningless and hollow.

Jansen stopped at where a landslide had tumbled into the valley, creating a perfect natural barrier for first squad to entrench behind. On either side of the barrier, the .70 cal machine gun emplacements had been set up. Rico noticed that they were swamped in spent shells, and that the numerous belt-feeder ammo crates, each packing two-thousand of the thick lead slugs were empty; they had been shot dry. "This is where we dug in, Sir." Said Jansen, gesturing around the area.

Rico climbed over the rockslide to survey their efforts. Everything was in order--exactly as Rico himself would have called it. So how the hell had it gone to shit so badly? Their position was almost un-goddam-assailable.

"We heard you begin the assault in the east. " Continued Jansen, "Not long after that the bugs were all over us like flies on shit. But we had the situation under control.. Taking them down at distance; the seventies are good at that.."

"Go on." Said Rico.

"You have to understand, Sir, that we were in the heat of battle… Hopped up on adrenaline. Gung-ho and scared shitless at the same time…"

Rico nodded with understanding, but was waving his hand in a 'get on with it' gesture.

"Yes, Sir. Anyway, we were wired like shit and taking down the bugs when that thing dropped on us from out of nowhere " said Jansen, pointing to the strange smoking wreckage they had passed. "It must have came from the basin behind us." He continued, setting off at a brisk pace towards the wreck. "It was on top of us in seconds, and like I said, we were all hopped up, so at the first sight of the thing, we started firing on it; first the seventies, which it took pretty well, then the rail gunners… it didn't take long to come down after they started."

Rico ran his finger along a scorched section of the strange craft's hull. It didn't look much bigger than a mobile infantry dropship, but its design was like nothing he had ever seen before. "Then what?"

"When it came down it scared the shit out of the bugs but good. They took off east again, back towards the nest."

"The nest has been taken care of."

"That's… good. But we have a new problem here, Sir. When the bird came down, these… monsters came crawling out of the wreckage… like bugs… But not."

"You're not making much sense, trooper."

"I can't describe them, Sir. Dark. Tall, slender… like giant ants or something. No eyes. See for yourself." He gestured at something that lay crushed under the wreckage. Rico had thought it was a piece of the wreckage itself, such was the monster's strange--almost biomechanical--appearance: smooth elongated head; ridged tubes, bare ligaments and tendons on the surface of its carapace; no eyes, like Jansen had said; a mouthful of savage teeth and, unless his eyes were deceiving him, it's tongue also bore its own set of perfect miniature jaws.

"What the hell?" Said Rico with almost voyeuristic curiosity.

"They were on us in seconds.. Tore right into us… and it only got worse when we tried to take them down… "

"What do you mean?"

"The Blazers tore them to pieces, no problem.. But their blood, Sir. Their blood…" Jansen hesitated, apparently ready for a rebuke.

"Acid?" Rico asked, piecing together the beginning of a puzzle in his head. Jansen looked dumbfounded for a moment.

"Yeah... I mean--Yes, Sir. It was like they came in waves. First the big ones trying to make a break for the jungle, just tearing into anything that got into their way.. Then the little ones.. Spider crabby things. Really fuckin' weird shit.

Rico nodded and turned to Poledouris for a second, remembering the spider-bug for a moment. "We bumped into one of those along the way. "

Jansen seemed to go rigid, and his face flooded with the most absolutely black dread that Rico had ever seen. "Did it get anyone?" he asked with a burning urgency.

"Get anyone?" Said Rico, puzzled.

Jansen pointed to a gathering of troopers huddled around a medic who seemed to be working on an injured soldier with urgent immediacy. Rico walked over and parted the huddle to see what was going on. His face warped with dismay and disgust at what he beheld. "Who is that?" He asked the Medic.

"Sergeant Keever, Sir. " Replied the Medic. Rico understood now what Jansen had been talking about: A Spider bug had clutched itself to Keever's head, completely smothering his face. It's serpentine tail was coiled tightly around his neck.

"We're trying to figure out a way to get it off before it kills him." Said the Medic.

"He's not dead?"

"Not yet. It's got all the hallmarks of a parasite, so I guess we ain't got long. But we can't just cut it off."

"Yeah. We caught the preview earlier."

"For the moment he's alive. The thing's keeping his blood oxygenated, but for why, I don't know. Can't be good, though. I can't say what'll happen in an hour or day from now. Hell, it could be eating his face off for all I know. We need to get him back aboard the Sentry. We can make a proper evaluation of him there, Sir. And the others…"

Rico looked around and saw at least a dozen others that he had overlooked as corpses sprawled here and there, the vile parasite clutching their heads with its long slender digits. "Get it done. All the injured. Anyone else who can walk and fire a gun get folded into my squad; we're checking out that basin. "

"Sir, with all due respect, that's crazy." Said Jansen. "You see what those things did to us."

"Absolutely; now I can anticipate and plan accordingly."

"Well, Sir… There's one more thing you should see before you go."

--

The look on the C.O's face said it all: Bewilderment; bemusement; apprehension--a strange brew of mixed adjectives. The squad huddled around him as he knelt beside the creature. Luckily it, too, was as dead as a doornail. It was tall. That was what Azumi had noticed first and foremost. Damn tall. And frankly, damn near human: Two arms; two legs; two of everything that a human had, she was sure, though its face was covered in a strange battle mask. Strangely, its head seemed to be adorned with thick, smooth dreadlocks. Its body was in bad shape from the crash and the .70 cal bullets that had nearly torn its right arm clean off at the shoulder. Its blood glowed green--luminous in the waning light of the day.

"What's under the mask?" murmured Poledouris.

"I'm not sure I want to find out." Replied Azumi.

Rico inspected the creature's weapons, looking increasingly amused and bewildered. "Jeez, these things are armed to the teeth." He noted, adding: "But most of it's old-school. Real hand-to-hand, up-close-and-personal stuff: Spears, throwing stars.. Whatever the hell this is." He said, holding up the creature's nearly severed right arm to show his troopers the wicked barbed blades that were set on a mount on the creature's wrist.

"I want one!" someone chirped beside Azumi. She didn't need to turn to know it was Rain. "That is so fuckin' cool!" he finished.

"It doesn't make sense…" continued Rico, now examining some kind of laser gun mounted on the creature's left shoulder. "Why would something that has technology enough to build spaceships and ray guns carry such rudimentary weapons?"

Jansen, thinking the question was actually aimed at him, just shrugged and shook his head.

"Around its neck." Said Poledouris. "It's necklace."

Rico lifted the necklace and inspected the macabre object in his palm. It was a simple piece of twine adorned with skulls and bones of small mammals. "Like the ancient tribes in the Brazilian rain forest.. Before they cut it down I mean.." He murmured.

"It's a hunter" Poledouris observed.

Rain immediately scoffed. "A hunter? What the fuck does it hunt? The bugs?"

"I don't know.."

"You telling me it eats those fucking things?" Rain pressed.

"Oh, please!" Azumi barked. "Back off, Rain!"

"I don't know." Poledouris repeated.

"Then shut the fuck up, Professor, until you know what you're--" Rain said, only to be silenced mid-sentence when Poledouris grabbed him and hauled him in close, face-to-face.

"Back off, Asshole." Poledouris stated calmly. The shock on Rain's face was priceless to Azumi, but she knew that her friend had crossed the line.

"Stand down, trooper!" Ordered Rico when he saw what was kicking off. Poledouris let go of Rain, but they remained in a stand-off. Rain had apparently found some balls in the last few seconds. "I said stand down, or I swear to shit 'n' almighty you'll both be facing administrative punishment when we get back aboard the Sentry!"

Rico's threat seemed to do the trick. Rain backed off, casting his eyes up and down Poledouris like he knew he could take him. He sank back onto the cluster of troopers gathered around the dead creature.

Surprisingly for Poledouris, the C.O. seemed to agree with his assessment of the creature, and while he inspected the beast's spear, asked him: "D'you think it hunts for sport?"

Poledouris shrugged. "I dunno, Sir. It was just an observation… thinking aloud. "

Jansen pointed to a tree that had fallen over and killed a couple of Arachnid and, surprisingly, one of the dead hunter creatures. "If they do hunt for sport, I don't think it's the bug they're after; they seemed surprised to find anything down here. They got tore up as bad as us."

Azumi watched as the Field Marshal stood and hoisted his blazer up, letting it rest in the crook of his elbow. He wandered a few steps in silence and deep thought, and though the order had already been given, she hoped he would see the folly of going into that basin. The analogy that sprang to mind was shit hitting the fan, but what splattered the walls wasn't shit, but blood and body parts.

He stayed that way for more than a minute, silently watching the twilight sky in the west. Another mile or two through the valley and into the basin. Azumi didn't like the sound of that; she had ran into enough bug traps in her two short years in the M.I. to know the signs, and the basin just screamed 'SCHMORGASBORD!!' to her as, she was sure, it must to the bug. And possibly these new creatures. When he finally did turn back, she saw the resolution and determination there which threw her fears into sharp relief.

They were going in.

--

"Fourth squad, Listen up!" Rico ordered. The faces of his troopers turned from whatever had held their attention for the last few minutes (of which there were many curiosities in this circus of carnage) to hear what he had to say, though judging by the thunderous looks on many of their faces, some had already guessed correctly. "Our mission parameters remain; we've still got an infestation to clear out, and I want to know what the hell we're dealing with… So we're still going in. Recon only, though. If we pull too much heat, we run."

His comm buzzed in his ear for a moment, before a tinny voice spoke: "Roughneck leader this is Sierra-echo-one. Be advised: we are reading some kind of anomaly in the exosphere above you."

"What do you mean, Sierra-echo-one?"

"There's something in the sky to the west of you, Roughneck leader. At this time we are unable to ascertain its origin."

Rico's eyes fell on the burning alien wreckage. "Roger that, Sierra-echo-one. I recommend to your captain that he may scan it, though it may be inadvisable to approach it at this time."

There was a brief pause before the Sentry's comm officer spoke again, with a wide south western accent that Rico hadn't heard for a long, long time. "That's an affirmative, Roughneck leader. The Captain agrees further investigation is necessary before we commence a fly-by. Though he is curious about the nature of your suggestion."

Rico lifted his eyes from the wreckage and looked into the sky. "I think… we're not alone down here." He said.

--

They began heading through the valley again. His orders, thus far, were being followed satisfactorily; Second and third squads were back at bug city, hopefully having mopped up what was left and waiting for extraction. A dropship was en-route for the dead and wounded of first squad, while the rest had been folded into fourth. What had began as a routing sweep had turned into something altogether different, and Rico could feel the mystery and intrigue of the situation chipping away at the years, as if his jaded outlook on life were some calcified growth. With some renewed vigour they covered the few kilometres at a brisk pace in less than an hour. And as soon as they emerged from the valley and into the basin, they saw it.

In the sky, distant, but visible was a huge alien ship. Rico felt his assessment of the situation alter rapidly from risky to outright suicidal; whatever the hell was going on here, his squad and a half of tired troopers weren't prepared for it. Not by a goddam long shot. He keyed the mike on his helmet, still dialled to the Sentry's freq. "We found the anomaly." He stated numbly.

As if his rising sense of alarm needed reinforcing, the sudden terrible bellow of some unknown creature echoed across the basin. Rico felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Another mighty roar rang through the basin, followed by the distinctive percussive blast of a weapon firing repeatedly, though it had a strange ring unlike anything he had heard before. At that moment the risk to his squad became unacceptable. Bugs he could take; bugs he knew, and could anticipate to an extent; bugs had been his forte for over forty years. But the idea of bugs AND some unknown alien species--correction: two unknown alien species, and one of them was heavily armed--buried the needle on his mental danger meter. But just as he was about to issue the order to fall back the world went white, and all of the air felt like it was being crushed out of his lungs.

Moments later, stunned, and with the last image he saw of the jungle below temporarily burned into the back of his retinas slowly fading, he felt someone haul him to his feet. Rico fought hard to make his eyes focus on the trooper, who was gesticulating desperately into the sky; he couldn't hear anything but a rumble of bass noise and a high pitched ringing in his ears. When he looked to the sky again--even though his stunned brain and light seared eyes weren't quite working in unison yet--he saw the huge alien ship plunging out of orbit, trailing a tail of flame. It's aft section had been destroyed completely. As his swimming focus and the buzzing in his ears began to die away, he saw all of his troopers (every one of them looking as stupefied as he felt) gazing at the sight.

"Look! LOOK!!" cried a trooper, stepping out of the huddle and pointing at a smaller piece of falling debris. Except it wasn't debris, Rico saw after a moment; it was one of the smaller Alien craft, very similar in style to the one first squad had shot down, but bigger… grander. It was spinning out of control, plummeting to the ground and a certain crash landing.

The huge alien ship began to burn up in the atmosphere, and with a sudden, sickening notion, he realised it was going to come down on top of where second and third squads were supposed to be. He hoped they had been extracted already.

Everyone still observed the western sky, nearly ninety people witnessing what came next. When the survivors from the mission to 4C-H were debriefed after the incident, the stories corroborated so well that the Federation couldn't refute the statements, and so buried it under threats of prosecution for treason, and a new oppressive 'global security' legislation that passed through the council without opposition.

Rico and his men stood enrapt in the darkness watching as something that initially looked like a distant winking star descended from the heavens like a feather. Later, witnesses would say they had first seen it right after the huge Alien ship had exploded. The pinpoint of light continued its graceful descent, and Rico found himself recalling a fond childhood memory of his father reading him the story of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell and the lost boys…

The light suddenly winked out, but in the same moment, Rico felt an eerie sensation pulling his body in the direction of the sky, as if the faded light had mass and gravity. From the unsure looks and odd nervous giggle from his troopers, he guessed they felt it too. When he saw entire trees leaning westwards, he knew what a powerful force it was, and how it could be dangerous beyond anything he could imagine.

The strange sensation pulling on him almost had him on his tip-toes as he fought against it. People swayed uneasily around him, as if on a ship in rough seas. The moment passed in seconds. Then night turned to day as the pinpoint of light first winked back into existence, then expanded exponentially like an exploding star. Brilliant white light obscured everything, forcing everyone to shield their eyes from it. The ground trembled underfoot, and as the light died again, Rico looked in time to see a blast wave rock the trees ahead, before it hit him and his squad, knocking everyone flat, though most were, thankfully, unharmed. The bruised and winded soldiers rose to their feet as the phenomena continued.

A profusion of lightning forked to the ground from the cloudless sky, fierce and hard. Rico could feel the static buzzing in the fillings in his teeth and the plates in his skull and pins in his legs--a uniquely bizarre and extremely uncomfortable sensation. It arced across the sky and struck the ground, scouring the forest floor for hundreds of yards, even entire kilometres at a time, leaving deep smoking furrows behind. Rico, saw that all the lightning came from a single focal point in the sky, around where the orb of light once again continued its fall, surrounded by chaos. The lightning stabbed back towards the ground again..

…and froze.

As if time itself had stopped, the lightning completely ceased to crackle and flash, caught like a photograph, a still moment captured forever. Then, suddenly, the orb of light shot into the ground like a bullet, leaving a silver streak in its wake that faded, as did the static ribbons and forks of lightning, back into darkness.

Rico and his men, breathless, unnerved, but mostly unharmed, stood in the darkness letting their eyes adjust again. Unknown to them, they had just witnessed the arrival of humanity's saviour from a time yet to come.


	4. Chapter 4: Crucible

Chapter 4: Crucible

For a second it felt just like dreaming: surreal and vivid, yet distant… intangible. He felt like a microbe in a pool of white light, yet his consciousness seemed to envelope and understand everything around him, if only for an infinitely brief moment. Time itself shifted around him; he watched the universe like an omnipotent God--witnessed nebulae condense into stars, accretion disks into planets, before age and decay rendered them sterile rocks in mere seconds. He saw galaxies birthed as time flowed around him. All the moments in all of time, every corner of the universe, from the oldest darkest regions where no stars ever formed, to the core heart of the universe, where super-condensed galaxies danced and spiralled like deities…

In the blink of an eye it was gone. He lay enveloped in darkness and the stars were now distant specks of light high above. The Spartan Warrior's armour was still set to terrestrial use from his time aboard the Diadem, and the air that the scrubbers pumped to him smelled like wood smoke and damp soil. Wherever the Fold had shot him to, it seemed to be a planet… and have a tolerable atmosphere. It occurred to him after a moment that he could still be aboard the Forerunner construct, such was their expertise at replicating terrestrial conditions aboard their vast installations.

The darkness around him was almost silent, except for the crackle of burning wood. Master Chief lay in silence, contemplating where and, more importantly, _**when**_ he was. Somehow--although he had nothing to gauge it against, he reasoned--it didn't feel like the end of all time to him, as Pensive Storm had stated the Fold was programmed to fire to. But everything had happened so fast aboard the Diadem, and the machinery of the Fold was so damaged when he activated it, that it was impossible to tell where in time and space he had ended up.

He rolled onto his side and got to his feet, feeling vibrant, alive, refreshed, like after a good night's sleep. It was as if travelling through the Fold had recharged his body and spirit. And after the weariness he had endured after his awakening aboard the aft of the Dawn, it was a welcome sensation. With his eyes still adjusting to the dark, the Chief took a few uneasy steps forwards, unsure of his footing, and felt the ground rise steeply immediately. After following the steep banks for what must have been three or four circuits, he came to the conclusion that he was trapped in a small but deep impact crater. The ground trembled for dully for a moment, and in the east, the unmistakable glow off an explosion turned the sky amber for a moment, before fading into darkness again. By the faint light of the explosion, he had his suspicions confirmed: He was indeed standing in a crater of some sort. But as the light waned, he saw something a little more urgent: the impact had apparently punched into a buried sinkhole, or cave, and the ground around him was slowly slipping into the mysterious and, judging by the volume of earth it was swallowing with ease, very deep hole. With the soil underfoot loosened a little by the impact tremor coming from far to the east, the ground beneath him began to give and slip. The Warrior began clambering up the walls of the crater, finding himself trying to out pace the falling dirt, or risk being swallowed by the deep dark, like a grain of sand through an hourglass. On his sixth attempt he reached the rim, and grasped at the ferns and vines that covered the ground, hauling himself over the edge to a sure, secure footing.

Almost straight away, with the immediate risk avoided, his thoughts turned to the flood. A Gravemind and it's Flood army--that's how 542 Pensive Storm described what was imprisoned aboard the Diadem. And they had been hurled through space and time just like the Warrior himself. The most pertinent question was if they had been zapped to the same space and time. They could be light years apart, in every sense of the term. For all he knew it could be the birth of the universe, or the end of it. For all he knew he could very well be on Earth in the time of the Dinosaurs, or on some distant planet in some distant galaxy on the other side of the universe. Or not. But he had a suspicion that wherever the Flood were fired to, he was riding right along behind them in their wake. He pulled his side arm and checked the clip: Only seven rounds left--hardly enough to take down a Flood army. He reholstered the weapon and set off towards the earlier explosion--eastwards, by his helmet's heads-up-display--out of curiosity. The impact was probably nothing but a stray meteorite. But maybe--just maybe--something of practical use had come through the Fold with him.

It was a trek he was in no mood for. Although brought up in the ways of a warrior, there had always been the promise of an end to his battles--a goal to strive for. With the defeat of the Covenant and the containment of the Flood threat, he had thought he had reached that goal, and had earned the right to live in peace for a while. It was beginning to feel like it would never end…

He had made a few miles by sunrise, and was pleased to find he had strayed little from his eastward course. With a little luck he might find the impact site by nightfall. During the trek his thoughts turned to Cortana more than once. He wondered if she was still trapped aboard the Diadem, or if she had been destroyed by either the activation of the Fold, or the meteorites that bombarded the installation. He was growing aware that he missed her acutely, as he had before when he was forced to leave her behind aboard the Covenant Sanctum, High Charity, when she attempted (and failed) to blow the engines of the crippled and Flood overrun UNSC frigate _In Amber Clad_. He had rescued the AI construct from the clutches of a Gravemind a short time later, realising just how much he depended on her; she was his friend, his guide and his conscience--as alive to him as any human in the galaxy. Somehow, bizarrely, his mind felt like an emptier place.

--

A theory was starting to formulate in his mind, a theory that--if he was correct--could paradoxically make survival on this unknown world a lot easier, or a lot harder. Since his arrival, he had heard no birdsong, no mating calls. No growls. No sounds of any kind that indicated this world supported any kind of animal life. But he had been on enough worlds in his time to know that where there was flora, there was usually fauna there to feed upon it and, usually, predators that fed on those. In what surely had to be considered a survival situation, he knew the importance of protein in his diet, and the idea of killing and butchering an animal for food didn't trouble him in the least. What was slightly more pressing was deducing what vegetation would be safe to eat, and what could be potentially poisonous--but on an unknown world, even though the flora seemed strangely familiar, how was he to tell with complete confidence what was safe for consumption and what was not? And, of course, he would have to ensure that he didn't end up on the menu himself. There would be a few times when he was exposed to such dangers from carnivores, since his Armour was tough enough to most kinds of mauling, but eating times, with his protective helmet removed, would be one such example. His life now would be a constant fight for survival. He held no illusions of rescue.

The sun reached its zenith in the sky, and the misty haze that had hovered just above ground level began to burn off. Still making good pace, the Chief grew confidant that he would make it to the mountains in the east by nightfall, and as he closed the distance, he could see a high natural pass a few miles north of a huge beautiful waterfall that cascaded over a cliff edge majestically. He hoped that the pass would lead to a way to the other side of the mountains.

His helmet's Heads-Up-Display suddenly locked onto something ahead, the waypoint indicating that it was nearly two hundred meters away. The waypoint marker remained a steady green color, indicating that it shouldn't be considered hostile. Curious, the Spartan picked up his pace to a jog. The waypoint marker steadily counted down the meters as he made up the distance quickly, and he came to a complete halt as the counter dropped to a solitary meter. On the jungle floor he could see no more than shrubs, vines and soft rotting mulch, even though the waypoint marker indicated that he was directly facing the mysterious object. He knelt and cleared away the leaves and mosses. When he saw the corner of the object his heart began hammering in his chest. He hurriedly cleared away the rest and beheld the object; as if it might disappear at the next moment, he grabbed it up and observed it closely, hoping vainly that she was in there somehow. But she wasn't; Cortana's module lay in his palm empty and lifeless. After looking at it numbly for a few moments, the warrior slid the module home into the neural interface on his helmet. Resigned to the fact that Cortana was gone, he set off eastwards again.

Though he was by no means an survivalist, self-sufficiency on the battlefield was a must for Spartans, and the techniques had been a part of the intense training program. The UNSC were famous for the close air-support they offered their troops, but the Spartans were designed to take the fight to the enemy on battlefields where air support might not be possible for weeks, even months at a time. To counter this each Spartan II had instilled in them tracking and hunting techniques from a young age. But since they were so resilient, their will to fight so strong, and their armour so well insulated, Spartans rarely sought shelter—each of the mentality that they should never need to stop long enough to need it; thus, it was not part of the program taught to the fledgling warriors.

The tracker skills instilled in him began now to notice the small things around him: A broken twig, hanging from a branch at head height; indentations in the mulch and soft, wet soil of the jungle floor, small, deep. Like a stake or a similarly pointed object had been driven a short way into the dirt. The latter spoor seemed to make no sense to him; the depressions seemed orderly to a point, concentrated together--almost as if...

His next thought gave him pause for thought: the spoor was telling him that a large multi-limbed creature had trodden this ground. With a small but rising sense of urgency the Warrior knelt and examined closely what he believed to be the footprints of a creature unlike anything he had seen before. Judging by the depth of the depressions in the soil, he estimated that the creature had to weigh close to three-hundred pounds, and by correlating that estimate with the broken twigs hanging from nearby trees, guessed that it had to be at least the height of a grown man. Whether or not it was dangerous would only be conjecture at this point; on this world he couldn't be sure of anything, but the idea of a three-hundred pound multi-limbed beast was not a comforting one. In order to know what he was dealing with, he began tracking it mainly because the tracks led in the direction he intended to go: East. Now, more than ever, he became aware of just how little ammunition he carried in his only weapon—his pistol—as he followed the tracks.

Within a few minutes he noticed that the trees had began to thin out, and more light managed to penetrate the dense jungle canopy. Here and there the trees seemed to be smeared in some green luminescent liquid. His first thought was that it might be some kind of natural secretion from the alien trees that surrounded him, but as air was drawn into the scrubbers, he could smell the unmistakable taint of blood under the fresh oxygen-rich air; all blood smelled the same no matter what species they were. He knew that all too well. He approached the trunk of a wide, tall tree. The blood was splattered in big arcs, indicating that whatever was bleeding was injured badly enough for its blood to jet and spurt from an artery. The Chief pulled his sidearm, now convinced that he shared this world with at least one serious threat. He scanned the ground, looking to follow the blood trails when he saw what was unmistakably a footprint in the soft soil beside the tree. The foot was broad and long—humanoid, definitely: this other creature walked on two legs. He followed both sets of prints until the trees gave way to a large natural clearing. The flattened blood-soaked grasses told the story of a struggle that led him deeper into the clearing until he stumbled on his first grim find: An Arm. Obviously from the humanoid creature he had tracked. Its tough mottled skin was shredded just where the arm should have been attached to a shoulder. The Warrior inspected the gruesome appendage with piqued curiosity: the clawed hand was protected by fingerless animal hide gloves, and there was a device of sorts mounted upon a gauntlet on its wrist. He rubbed a clot of dirt from the device, and was surprised when it flipped open like the cover of a book. It was obvious that it was some kind of console, with buttons and a display. What its purpose was he couldn't tell from this cursory inspection. He placed the severed limb back on the ground and continued following the blood trail, until he found the rest of the creature. The first thing that struck him was its height, for it must have been at least a foot taller than he, which meant that it was not much short of eight feet tall, maybe more; it was hard to tell from the atrophied, mangled corpse. Its face was masked, and as he tried to pull it away, he became aware that it must have been held in place by a seal. He followed the cables and tubing from the creature's mask, down past its shoulder, on which it sported a weapon of some kind, to a pack, mounted on the back of its left shoulder, which seemed to house some basic life-support functions, plus motorized controls for the weapon attached. He tugged at the tubes, which came away with a gaseous hiss. This time the mask came away easily. Beneath it was a fearsome face that was at once alien, yet somehow familiar. The beast had a wide, flat crest , covered in what looked like ritual scars, its eyes looked into nothingness, mere pupils in an all white orb. But its mouth...its mouth was a fearsome maw of talon-like mandibles that looked like they could rip the living flesh from a Crocodile. Strangely, this was the trait the Warrior found familiar, since it reminded him of the Sangheili of Sanghelios—the race of the Covenant's dreaded Elites. Add to that the average height of the Sangheili and you could have a race that could be distant cousins, perhaps sharing a common ancestor back in the depths of history. Then again, perhaps not; such was mere speculation based only on slight physical similarities. Whatever this thing was, it was damn ugly. That was for sure.

On the beast's remaining arm there was another gauntlet, similar to the one he had found just minutes earlier. Similar, but different. As he inspected it he realized that it was rigged to the beast's forearm for reasons he couldn't yet place. Turning it over, the beast's dead hand fell limply, and two wicked barbed blades pumped out of the gauntlet side by side, each over a foot long.

His next thought came immediately, and in the same moment, he was searching for a way to remove the gauntlet from the beast's arm and find a way to lash it to his own; Any weapon had to be better than none, and he wasn't above getting up-close and personal when the bullets were spent. Neither was he above filching for weapons from the dead—no matter what the species. The gauntlet slid off the beast's wrist after he hauled it so hard he was convinced momentarily that he had ripped the arm out of its socket. Left lashed on its wrist now were a series of hide straps, from which protruded small metallic posts, each with a small hole bored in the center. On closer inspection he found that this was how the gauntlet--which had to weigh ten-pounds at least—stayed secure. He loosened the straps and lashed them to his own wrist, though he soon found that his own armour was too bulky to fit the gauntlet. It would need work.

The weapon and pack mounted on the beast's shoulder was a sore temptation for him, for if he could somehow find out how it worked, it would give him a projectile weapon to rely on, instead of just the blades. He hefted the pack—which was attached by similar hide straps—into a netting bag the beast carried on its belt, hoping that he would not run into one soon. Or, indeed, the creature capable of tearing this well-armed beast to pieces.

He began heading east again, by himself, but not alone.

Not by a long shot.

--

The message came through as Rico debriefed his troopers, safely back aboard the Sentry of Eons. It made his heart sink, for it was not the first time he had received such a message. Nor, he suspected, would it be the last. The text blinked on the data pad:

_Strong human bio-signature found on the surface. The Captain wants to know if you have possibly left anyone behind. _

Regards, Thomson. A. 6741124

He looked at the message numbly. Someone had been left behind alive. During the debrief Jansen, the shaken trooper who had taken over first squad when Keever was disabled, had told Rico that he had sent six runners through bug territory to reach fourth squad when their communications were cut off. They had never come back, and everyone, including Rico—who cursed himself and told himself he should have known better—had considered them dead. Now it looked like there was a survivor. Just one.

With each and every mission against the bug there was always personnel M.I.A, and after the first disastrous incursion to bug territory on Planet P it had become a compulsory measure to scan for survivors after extraction. Survivors were rare.

After the strange events on the surface, Rico was in no mood for a return trip anytime soon. They were unprepared for a battle against bugs and two other alien species they knew next to jack-shit about. The troopers were busy chatting and joking and sharing their stories of what happened on the surface for the moment, as was their wont when they had ticked off another mission and come back alive, but if any of them had looked at Rico for a moment, he knew the mood of the room would change in a heartbeat. Instead, he told them the debrief could wait (which was received with whoops, whistles and heart-felt cheer) and made his way to the planetary tech station, located on the lower fore deck, just below the bridge. The commtech—a rookie—started out of his seat as if to salute, faltered halfway out and sat again, before, Rico saw, the flustered fleet rookie readied to repeat the whole process again. Rico saved him anymore confusion (though not embarrassment, since the noob had already turned almost purple with all the blood flooding his cheeks and forehead) by waving him back into his seat. "At ease, Crewman."

"Y..Yes, Sir."

"The surviving trooper," Rico said. "What does his transponder say?"

"We don't know, Sir. " Replied Thomson, flushing red again.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Barked Rico. He was short with the tech, but now didn't seem to be the time for niceties. The flustered crewman began punching buttons on his console frantically.

"The transponder signal is off the charts, Sir; it's like it's super compressed into a stacked packet burst, and we can't decrypt it."

"The signal's fried?"

"No, Sir. It's like nothing I've ever seen."

"But it could be a fried signal?" Rico pressed.

"I don't..."

"We got hit pretty hard by that freak electrical storm from hell down there. If that's one of my troopers with a fried transponder, I want to know." Said Rico, jabbing a finger at the screen that showed the location of the signal.

"I don't know what to tell you, Sir."

"Answer me some questions then: Is it human?"

"Yes, Sir. Without a doubt."

"Is it alive?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good." Said Rico. "Then we're going to get it."

He had turned and was halfway out the door when the tech spoke. "There's one more thing, Sir."

Rico halted and turned. His mood since landing back aboard the Sentry of Eons had been amiable, if a little spooked by what he had witnessed on the planet below. Now, with the prospect of having to lead a search and rescue on the surface, his mood was turning blacker by the second. "What is it?" He asked, again aware that he was being short with the crewman, who was doing an adequate job.

"The signal, Sir. It's moving... headed east. Maybe to where first squad were positioned when that thing came down on top of them."

Rico nodded and exited, his suspicions all but confirmed. It had to be a survivor from First squad. And whoever it was deserved a goddamn medal as far a Rico was concerned; hell, whoever survived alone for seventeen hours on a bug infested planet deserved a goddamn holiday named after them. Only one person had ever survived for longer than that (officially on record) and had lived to tell the tale. But that had been a long time ago...

For the moment, he had a rescue operation to mount—one that could potentially cost more lives than it was worth, but he would never knowingly leave a trooper to the horror of being stranded on a bug world alone. Not even if he had to pay the Reaper with his own life.

--

Despite the med-bay crew's protestations, a crowd had began to gather at the window to the operating theatre. The troopers jostled and nudged each other for the best position, all vying to watch med-bay removing the strange new bug that got Sergeant Keever. It had been given many nicknames by the troopers, but only one had seemed to stick so far, although when Rain first uttered it in his usual facetious fashion, he meant it as an ironic observation. By now it had spread far enough for everyone to refer to it by the name Rain had given it, though some who tried to invent their own names for it (such as "Spider-bug"; "the Visitor"; "The Crab"; and perhaps most bizarrely, "Hank") stubbornly tried to cling to their self-appointed monikers. The rest just called it "The Hugger" as Rain had dubbed it.

The Med-bay team had been examining it for almost an hour now, and all they had ascertained was that it was not—as everyone believed—killing the Sergeant. As a matter of fact, it was keeping his blood and brain well oxygenated, though there was a mysterious substance that the Hugger was slowly releasing into his blood stream that they couldn't identify, but it seemed to have rendered him unconscious, or to have paralysed him, since he was completely unresponsive to any stimuli.

Knowing the tale of the effect a hugger had on the barrel of a trooper's blazer hours earlier made the task no easier; they couldn't cut it off, and when they tried prying its slender digits from its vice grip in Sergeant Keever's face, its tail coiled tighter and tighter around his neck like the mythical devil's snare. As if sensing events were conspiring against it, the hugger moved of its own accord.

"Whoa! Look out, man!" cried one of the observing troopers, moments later joined by more in a chorus of warnings, shouting and pointing frantically, leaving greasy fingerprints smeared over the glass of the observation window.

When Doctor Morse glimpsed its minute movements, he stumbled backwards a few steps in horror, grasping his two assistants and hauling them back with him, all now heading straight for the door as quickly as their legs could carry them, even though the hugger had barely moved more than an inch. They halted at the door, aware now that it wasn't giving chase, and the troopers at the window fell into a still silence as the thing slowly, sluggishly, eased it's grasp on Keever. The tail uncoiled its snare around his throat; it's legs relaxed, and if it wasn't so transfixing to behold, some of the troopers would surely have laughed as it lethargically slid off the Sergeant's face and landed with a thud that seemed both hollow and wet at the same time on the floor, its legs curled into its body like the atrophied legs of a dead spider.

Everyone was so still for a moment, as if waiting for the thing to suddenly lunge at anyone who moved, or spoke, or breathed.... scared that it was playing possum to snare a new victim. Predictably, it was a trooper, safely behind the glass of the observation window who spoke first: "Doc.... Is it dead?"

Morse, still trembling, glanced at the collage of curious faces looking at him through the glass, bug eyed and sweating. "Hell if I know!" was his answer.

One of his assistants moved away from his side and slowly, cautiously, approached the hugger as it lay on the floor, being careful to stay at arm's length from it. The medic picked up the closest tool to hand—a sonic scalpel—and prodded it, once, twice...

"Careful!" urged Doc Morse, his voice no more than a whisper. After a few more reassuring prods from the tool in the trainee's hand everyone seemed to believe it was indeed dead.

The stillness and evaporating tension was shattered completely as a tannoy announced: "All combat personnel report to loading bay four. Repeat: All combat personnel to loading bay four."|

The troopers departed, discontentedly, knowing that the order could only spell trouble. The med-bay staff were left with their enigmatic alien stiff.

Soon the other med-bays would be reporting similar phenomenon among the fourteen other personnel who had been attacked by the loathsome creatures.....

–

They began dribbling into the bay, sullen in their fatigues. That was fine by Rico; this was an appeal for volunteers first and foremost, and if he could find none, he would just have to pick 'em. As it was, once he had explained the situation most of Keever's first squad volunteered straight away, still haunted by the memory of the six MIA troopers who had gone for reinforcements when that ship came down on them, until now presumed dead. A good percentage of the other squads heeded the call also; too much to risk for the sake of one life. Perhaps, Rico thought, he should have said he was taking no more than two recon and rescue squads. Sixteen men in total, including himself and Dalray, whom he hand picked to be his second on the ground. Dalray was a given. He was one of the best officers he had ever met, let alone served with or commanded: Firm, capable, inspiring, fearless (to the point that Rico had thought him a liability when they had first met, though his mind was quickly changed within their first few engagements) and with balls enough to pipe up when he thought his superior was making a bad call. Rico saw a lot of his younger self in Dalray, and wondered whatever had happened that young Johnny Rico that lingered in his memory and in the old weary bones and the multitudes of scars upon the skin of his body. "Lieutenant, pick your squad." Rico ordered.

"Sir." Said Dalray, and began calling out names immediately. Rico, not knowing his troopers as well as his officers did, nor as much as he would have liked to, looked at the faces before him. He saw the set jaws, the determined gleam in the eyes of those who volunteered and meant it, and the evasive glances of those who only stepped up to save face. The latter were dismissed instantly from potential selection. Without naming names, or even asking for them, he walked past the ranks, picking seven troopers as he went. Poledouris and Azumi were among his group. As was Van Buren, Dalray noted with concern; he was an odd one... constantly glancing around all the time with his big wide eyes, his listless posture. Something about him made Dalray uneasy, something he could never quite pin down. Rico on the other hand saw the keen glint in Van Buren's eyes, ever watchful and alert. He had learned never to dismiss the odd ones a long time ago, since most were so deeply instilled with a vast inferiority complex that could push them to extraordinary efforts given the right circumstances.

"Get ready." Ordered Rico. "We're bringing that trooper back alive."

–

Phay'd sped through the treetops as quickly as his muscles could take him, desperately seeking the wreckage of the main seeder that had fallen, tumbling from the sky, beneath the blazing hulk of the mothership, which had seared through the sky to its destruction to the east. Somehow, through circumstances completely unknown to him, things had gone from bad to worse...

Gryshh had been left behind to watch over the Dek'd'tor, while Phay'd had chosen to search for survivors—if there were any—in the wreck of the main seeder. From there, he knew he must set out to ascertain the fate of the mothership, although it seemed plainly obvious that it was most certainly destroyed. But what had happened? What had caused that powerful explosion at the mothership's engines? If it cost him every drop of blood he had ever spilled in his time, and all of it coursing through his veins, he knew he had to find the meaning of that bizarre lightning storm that had followed moments later. Were they perhaps connected?

The sound of the breeze blowing through the trees and the rustling of the branches were the only sounds he heard as he raced westwards, but more were coming to him now, carried on a wind that smelled like smelted steel. It was both heartening and grave; the sounds were of an enraged Yautja, it's roar and the blast of its cannon shattering the air--more so: he could hear a screeching, hissing cacophony he knew so well that only came from the Hard Meat. His visor began picking up the heat signature of the wreckage...

He came to the end of a long strong limb that overlooked the crash site, pausing for just a moment to see a lone Yautja fending off several Hard Meat drones. The Queen, the matriarch of the hive, their hard won prize, was gone. He leapt to the ground roaring with rage and blood lust, landing with a litheness that belied his age. His Kicti'pa—his wicked, cleaving wrist blades—sprang from their sheaths to a single metallic tone that was a song of the hunt to his ears. He sprang forwards, ramming the blades through the head of the nearest drone he could reach, simultaneously targeting another that was sneaking up behind the survivor. The blast from his burner sent the creature flying backwards head (although it didn't actually have one any more) over heels in a macabre somersault.

The survivor didn't notice, and continued to fend off three drones that had boxed him in. Phay'd moved to intercept when talons reached from behind and hooked into the flesh over his left ribs, sinking so deep he could feel them grinding against the bone. Phay'd howled with agony and rage and reached behind him. Upon finding something he could grasp, he hauled the drone over his shoulder and threw it to the ground. It lay there squirming for a moment before he finished it permanently by stomping its head into the soil repeatedly.

By now the survivor had noticed his presence, and had turned his body so that Phay'd could join him and together they could assume the classic defensive position to fall back together, while fending off the hard meat as one. As Phay'd fought off the remaining aliens (by now sure there were less than ten left, considering how many drone bodies littered the jungle floor—if all had survived the crash) the survivor pointed the south-east, towards a distant volcanic promontory that began a chain of cliffs and mountains that ran northwards. He could see broken twigs and branches high in the trees and large, deep alien footprints in the soft mulch of the jungle floor—a path of destruction that was the classic tell-tale signature of a berserking Hard Meat Queen. Hearteningly, two trails of bright Yautja blood followed the path of carnage. The Queen was alive, and two injured Yautja had followed, but, he remembered, they were only likely to encounter that deadly new hard meat species, which could rip a Yautja limb from limb...

A drone leapt at him, hissing and spitting, talons at full reach, and the hunter at his side drove his spear through its body so hard that it continued through and impaled its arm, leaving it stuck in a final grim tableaux, fixed in the position of its final attack . The last attacking alien died, it's mouth a permanent sneer...

The respite gave Phay'd a moment to pull his medical pack and tend his wounds; his ribs would only really start hurting when his adrenaline levels started dropping, and it would be best to have his injuries treated before then. He was not the first sentient creature on the world to realise that no glory could come of this, and that it was now a fight for survival.

As was usual for the Yautja after combat, both hunters communicated in a way that was barely verbal, speaking volumes in short trills and grunts, displaying their intentions with body language, ancient and instilled in them from birth, both understood the other naturally.

The other hunter—who hadn't identified himself yet, nor could Phay'd recognise him-- seemed to wish to follow the others who were tracking the Queen. Phay'd ignored his overt gestures, ducking into a tear in the side of the smoking wreckage of the main seeder. The remains of four other Yautja lay strewn around the ship, including the burned and mangled remains of the Captain, Noc, his flayed hands still grasping the controls, brow and crest knit heavily over his eyes with determination. He headed deeper into the craft, squeezing through the the bulkhead to the pens. Only a handful of drones lay dead within, some killed by the crash, others seemingly crushed by the great weight of the alien queen. Her tethers had sheared cleanly off at the wall. Whether due to the crash or the tremendous force of will of the Hard Meat Queen could only be guessed. Tough leathery eggs lay strewn all over. Some, like the drones, crushed. Others scorched until their contents had cooked alive. Some, however, were very much still alive. His visor caught movement in the high waveband that penetrated the outer layer of the eggs, showing him twitching crawlers within, ready to hatch into this world and make it their own.

Like his hunt brothers before him, who had set out after the Queen, he was left with a choice of what to do next; the seeding was supposed to be a controlled process, where Hard Meat locations and movements could be—to a degree—manipulated. Circumstances had changed now. This was no longer just a fine new world ripe for seeding; this was now home until the time when the Elders would arrive, and nobody could predict when that would happen. He realised that to try to control the Hard Meat would be folly; The other seeding squads would surely have deposited their cargo by now, and were likely converging somewhere near the wreck of the mothership, investigating its fate, searching for survivors. It was then that a plan began to formulate in his mind. Though the seeding craft didn't have the range to allow effective escape from this world, they could easily be used to hop its continents. If he could gather all the survivors together, they could depart for safer climes, and leave this place to the Hard Meat—both new and old. It satisfied both criteria of solving the situation he and his fellow hunters faced, namely survival. To die in the glory of a hunt was one thing. But to be the hunted, running scared forever, that was abhorrent to his every sense.

The most glaring question remaining was: would the Hard meat survive these new creatures—these new hard meat that had been described to him, that had ripped Yautja apart with apparent ease? Could they survive each other? As a Yautja he was instilled with a deeply ingrained will to find and overcome all unknown factors, but this world had proven particularly deadly.

His mind still spinning with a thousand separate thoughts, Phay'd gestured for the other hunter to follow. He would leave the eggs intact. The world was meant for the Hard Meat, and it was all theirs. All they had to do was survive it...

The pair of hunters ascended into the jungle canopy at Phay'd's lead and began heading eastward again, towards the sun, which rose burning red in his visor's wavelength against the cool blues of the distant mountains. If he could find the others he had left behind to come here, he would take them towards that sun, towards where the mothership surely now lay as a tomb to so many dead Yautja. He was beginning to hurt now, however. The wound in his side, although treated, was burning... burning like his ribs were white hot embers searing his flesh, and he knew it was slowing him already. To the best of his knowledge, only the Yautja at his side—whom he had dubbed Claw--was fit and healthy enough to be in any kind of ready state for a fight. Phay'd himself, Gryshh, and the Dek'd'tor would all be an impediment to him. He halted, browsing the treetops, searching for any kind of useful landmark he could use to guide himself back to the others, before realising that he had been in such a haste to ascertain the fate of Noc and the main seeder that he had paid no mind to his surroundings. The dash through the trees was a blur, as was the memory of it now.

Finding them would be a difficult task.

–

"Sir!" Cried someone behind Rico. "Sir! SIR!!"

When he turned, feeling that stern look on his face and meaning every bit of it, he saw he was being followed into the drop-bay by a team of whitecoats, all looking harried and sweaty, hauling crates of assorted equipment he couldn't even begin to guess the nature of. It did nothing to improve his mood.

The term whitecoats itself was a somewhat dated anarchism, since modern federation scientists assigned to particular ships usually wore the same combat fatigues as everyone else—they were, after all, soldiers first, and would be expected to bear arms should it be required of them. The real big difference was how soft they often got. The five whitecoats approaching him now all looked like they'd fold in the heat. Semantics aside, a whitecoat was a whitecoat, something he had no time to entertain. "I don't have time for this."

"We won't take any of your time, Sir; we just want to hitch a ride to the surface. " Said the lead whitecoat. A weathered redhead whose scarred face and neck spoke volumes about her time before joining the science crew of the Sentry of Eons. Maybe, he thought, this one was moulded out of something a little harder than the rest. The others: two slightly overweight Caucasians men, a far-east Asian guy and a waspish brunette who looked so young he was convinced she must have joined up straight out of college, all looked like soft putty compared to the one who led them. He glanced at the lead whitecoat's left breast pocket on her fatigues. There, stitched in black thread below her number was her name: Silberman. She looked like fired clay next to her play-doh entourage.

"Okay." He nodded. "You've got two minutes to get your shit stowed. We drop in three, with or without you."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir." Said the redhead, before turning to her team and issuing orders in a flurry of gestures.

Both the rescue teams had their weapons safely stowed when Rico stepped aboard the dropship, and Dalray was already going over the mission brief with them, making sure everyone knew their place. Sturdy equipment cases begin to tumble in the hatch behind Rico, and soon the science team were peering through the opening apprehensively. Their gazes were met by those of sixteen determined mobile infantrymen, whose glares could probably have withered freshly cut flowers. "Stow your shit and grab a seat. Hurry" Rico ordered, taking his own beside the hatch to the cockpit. One of his troopers uttered a witty joke about the whitecoats that drew some giggles as they secured their equipment before sheepishly taking a row of seats that left them all sitting together, safely away from the grunts. Except for the redhead. Silberman took the seat next to Rico, winking to him confidently, her scarred skin a thin wrinkled film that slid over the muscles beneath as she did so. Rico returned a polite nod and checked his watch. The mysterious trooper that had left behind had been down there for almost eighteen hours now by his estimate, and their chances for survival were diminishing by the second. At least they were still alive so far; Thomson, the commtech who discovered the signal, had been ordered to notify Rico of any and all changes to that signal. If the trooper on the surface stopped to piss, he wanted to know.

The last seconds of that minute ticked away, and on the mark of 2345 hundred hours, he signalled the pilot to commence the drop.

They were bringing that trooper back alive, he determined. They had to bring him back alive.

His damn sanity needed this to be a win.

–

Master Chief was beginning to get a sense that distances on this world were deceptive. It was almost as if the air itself magnified everything around, and made it seem closer than it really was. The fact that night had fallen before he had made it anywhere near the mountains that earlier had seemed so within reach were testament to that; by the full light of day they had looked no more than twenty miles away—a distance he knew he could make at a leisurely pace in a few hours. The short night had passed, and now, backlit by the twilight of the coming dawn, the mountains still looked to be in the double figures of miles away. And though his fatigue threshold was far above that of a normal human, he had begun tire.

When he came upon the cave, he intended to bypass it and continue onwards, but his muscles, eyelids and mind were heavy with weariness. Switching on the lamps located below his helmet's visor the Chief carefully inspected the ground at the yawning cave mouth, looking for spoor, tracks--anything that might indicate it was still in use by something he might not want to stumble into--but finding nothing. Out of an instinct that told him to hide, and hide well, rather than a need for shelter (since his Mjolnir armour was all the shelter he would ever need, such was its superior engineering) the Spartan proceeded inside. The rocky floor was slick with a moist gelatinous film, and as he looked around, he saw beaded strings of the same gelatinous liquid suspended from strange calcified cones that hung from the roof like stalactites, too uniform in size and spacing to be natural. Where the rocks weren't slick with the congealed liquid, mould seemed to flourish, covering everything in a furry blue coat. As he headed deeper into the cave the hollow sound of the breeze blowing by the mouth of the cave died away. For some reason the dark and silence reminded him of being back aboard the Diadem...

The beams of the lamps fell on a mound of rocks, no more than forty meters ahead. The way had been sealed off by a cave-in, his way barred by an impenetrable barrier of rocks. Here and there he could see gaps—like spyholes into the darkness beyond that the lamps couldn't pierce. His armour's scrubbers pulled in air that smelled dampness and, strangely, an aroma that smelled slightly like spoiled meat, unpleasant and oily at the same time, but vague, indistinct.

Comfortable that he was hidden well enough from any immediate danger, the Spartan rested, propping his back against a large boulder from the cave-in, so that he faced back the way he had come. He pulled the netting bag onto his lap and inspected the weapons he had requisitioned from the alien corpse. No living creature that carried so many weapons could be good news, of that he was sure (though mankind, which never explored any new territory without a portable arsenal never figured into his equations, since he had been so singularly indoctrinated in mankind's right to bear arms against the enemy—whether said enemy was aware of their status or not).

The bladed gauntlet was first. As he examined it closely by the light of his helmet's lamps, he saw what he had not seen by the broad light of day, when he had hauled it from the arm of the dead crab-faced creature: a small latch that secured the blade unit to the gauntlet. When he pushed it aside, the blade unit slid backwards a few inches, exposing adjustable clasps that had been hidden away. Curious, he flicked the clasps open, and the gauntlet split in two on a hinge like a feeding clam, wide enough for him to fit it over his armour on his right arm. But as he tried to close it, it became a more difficult task, the girth of his armour preventing the two sides from meeting and locking together again. Awkwardly, and more out of a pressing need for weapons than any sense of experimentation, the warrior knelt on the gauntlet. After a few moments of forcing his weight down on it, he managed to force the clasps over, each hitting the catch at the extremities of their reach. He tugged at the gauntlet now fastened over his right arm testing its hold, assured that it wouldn't budge. He slid the blade unit back into place, being careful to place the ball-shaped activation switch at the flex point on the wrist of his armour, so that an inwards flick of the wrist would activate it. Once it was all back together, he gave it a quick cursory inspection and, first assuring the blades weren't pointed at himself, he curled his right hand into a fist and flexed his wrist. The blades pistoned out from the gauntlet in the blink of an eye, and the warrior felt a smile curl the edges of his lips. With a certain sense of satisfaction he relaxed his wrist and uncurled the fist he had made. The blades dutifully retracted into the unit with a metallic _shuck!_

Fishing around in the netting bag again, he pulled out the bulkier shoulder mounted weapon and saw immediately there was no way to mount it effectively upon his armour without extensive modifications being made to both weapon and suit. His weariness, coupled with his need to remain vigilant meant that he had neither the time, nor the inclination to carry out the modifications. Though with the spare leather straps that the beast had used to affix the gauntlet to its wrist now left over and unnecessary, he imagined a way he could perhaps lash it on physically. Of course, after that came the real difficult part: figuring out how the thing worked, and how to interface it with his suit.

He tucked it away in the netting bag again; It could wait.

Unknown sleepless time passed in the cave, despite how tired he was. The warrior, upon realising that his lamps were acting as a beacon signalling his presence to anything that was curious enough to investigate the cave, killed the lights.

The dark was timeless. Impossible to judge except by his steady breathing and the beat of his heart. His weariness was weighing down on him, heavier and heavier. Soon sleep took him into its own blackness.

–

It could have been minutes, or even hours later when he awoke with a jolt. Such was the shock of it, he was on his feet before he had fully come to his senses, and was left standing bewildered momentarily in the darkness, but convinced he was not alone. He turned on the lamps and observed the cave around him closely, but saw nothing. But before he had any chance to feel relief, something rammed hard into the other side of the rock fall behind him, trying to force its way through. Loose chips and bigger rocks fell away with the force of each impact, and he realised what had caused him to start awake so suddenly. When he faced the rock fall he saw nothing. Yet whatever lay beyond reacted to the lights. An insectile screech, sounding alarmingly close echoed through the cave, followed by a few more, then dozens all together.

He had alerted some kind of nest to his presence, and knew flight was his only choice. He pulled his sidearm and began backing away, keeping his eyes on the rockfall, which was now being battered repeatedly in more than one point, whatever lay on the other side vehemently trying to force its way through. As he back peddled, his feet slid away from beneath him on the slick rocks, landing hard enough on his back to knock the wind out of him a little. Laying there, vulnerable for the merest moments, he watched as the calcified cones on the cave roof eased out long, thin, pink tendrils that grasped at him, wrapping themselves around his limbs and head and neck. The warrior struggled against the binds helplessly, as they started to pull him towards the cave ceiling. Not first the first time of his short time on this planet, he felt like he was about to become supper for the indigenous creatures of this world. He hauled against the tendrils that had his right arm, bringing his sidearm to bear on one of the cones, and fired. The cone was blown into powder, and a fat, writhing grub nearly the length of his arm landed wetly on the rocks below. The obscene pink tendril whipping at the air from its grotesque maw. At that moment, the others released their grip on him, instead grasping at the writhing maggot thing on the rocks. The grub was pulled towards the cones above, to where many eager pincered mouths awaited.

The rocks behind had started to loosen due to the pounding from the far side, and as he got to his feet (unaware that the innards of the captured maggot thing were now dribbling on him from above), he could catch glimpses of the creatures through the gaps. There was now no choice: He had to run for his life

As he sped up the slope of slippery rocks, still dodging the tendrils that snaked out from the cones above, he heard the rocks of the cave-in finally give and tumble away. The vicious insectile screeches intensified, and the cave echoed with the sounds of hundreds of the creatures scuttling across the hard rocks. The last bend in the cave lay ahead, beyond it the outside world. Something screeched close by...

Too close.

The Warrior turned, and upon glimpsing what was following him, squeezed the trigger of the gun in his hand, firing off a single round. The beast recoiled slightly, falling into the beams of his helmet's lamps: A huge insect, with four scuttling legs and massive shearing jaws that protruded absurdly from its tiny thorax, mottled in pus hues of off-yellows and festering greens, which passed for camouflage on a world as carboniferous as this--A beast built for the kill, with dozens, maybe hundreds more following it eagerly.

He squeezed off another round, catching sight of its large orbit of an eye that rolled in its socket, seemingly the only soft spot in the beast's tough exoskeleton. Its eyeball splattered. The insectoid's reaction was of sheer outrage, its limbs and deadly jaws thrashing everywhere in a fury. But now he saw the others catching up behind it. He took to his feet again, sprinting up the slipper rocks and around the last corner, preparing to flee into the jungle.

Instead he found himself staring directly down the barrel of a large machine gun, and a moment later, staring at the face behind it, which looked as bewildered as the Chief himself felt. That look on the man's face changed in a moment from bewilderment, to the grim business-like set of a veteran soldier—the Spartan knew it well.

"Down!" ordered the man on the other side of the gun barrel.

The Spartan dropped and spun around, levelling his weapon at the approaching creatures, but before he could fire another round, the world around him suddenly erupted in gunfire. As he glanced around, he realised that the man was leading some kind of armed force.

The first wave of insect creatures were stopped in their tracks by the withering gunfire, leaving only bullet riddled carcasses that oozed out thick, green blood. When the soldiers paused to reload, the creatures launched another wave against them. The Chief did what he could with the last of his bullets, aiming for the soft eyeballs of the insectoids, hitting home with just two of the shots.

Above the tremendous noise of the gunfire, he heard someone shouting. "I can see conicals, Sir!"

"A nursery!" cried the leader. "Nuke it!"

A soldier ran to the front, crouching down on one knee and levelling a rocket launcher of sorts into the depths of the cave. The insectoids reacted with vitriolic rage and surged harder and faster, despite the hail of gunfire tearing them to pieces in the bottleneck of the cave mouth.

"Fall back!" ordered the leader as the insects pushed forwards inexorably, clambering over the carcasses of the fallen. The soldier beside the Chief readied his rocket launcher and held his finger on the trigger, and as Master Chief watched the soldier prepare to fire, a hand grasped at his shoulder. "Fall back! That's an order!" the leader shouted above the gunfire, tugging at him as if he were a stubborn mule.

The insectoids were less than ten meters away when the rocket was fired into the cave. As soon as the round was fired, the soldier dropped the launcher and ran for his life as fast as he could to rejoin the others. As the Chief himself caught up with the group, it seemed as though the leader was about to say something to him, when his focus changed in an instant. "Trooper, look out!" He cried to the rocket soldier. When the Chief turned, he saw the blastwave spewing flames out of the cave mouth, incinerating all the insectoids in an instant—all, except one. Without thinking, the Chief took to his feet, charging at the beast, despite the protestations of nearly everyone behind him.

The rocket soldier's face was a wide-eyed mask of panic as he desperately tried to outpace the beast. But with only a few strides to go, the Spartan could see he would never make it in time. He leapt forwards, hauling the soldier to the ground with him and praying that the leader had sense enough to take the split-second opportunity the Chief had created.

He did.

As soon as the Spartan had cleared the way, the group of soldiers opened fire, peppering the insectoid with hot explosive-tipped lead. The creature spasmed and jerked, its legs stomped the ground around the Chief and the soldier, driving the hard, sharp points of its legs (for they had no feet to speak of, just the toughened carapace that tapered to points which they used effectively as weapons with their praying-mantis like arms beside those disproportionately large and deadly jaws) deep into the soil. Suddenly it was over them—directly over them, stomping the ground as its body jerked this way and that way with the force of the bullets. The Chief tried crawling from beneath it, nearly getting run-through by one of its legs in the process. But the bullets had done their work. The insectoid screeched shrilly one last time and collapsed into a heap beside him.

The Spartan took a moment to catch his breath again before standing up. The leader approached briskly, looking angry. He stopped only inches from Master Chief and glared at him. "What the god-damn hell was that?" he demanded.

"I did what I could." Answered the Spartan.

"Not enough." growled the leader, gesturing with a nod for the Chief to look behind him. The rocket soldier's dead eyes stared into nothingness; the broken stump of one of the creatures legs protruded from between his shoulder blades.

–

The strange armour-clad warrior observed Davis' impaled corpse for a moment that Rico thought might have been out of regret or contemplation. But when the warrior knelt beside the body and took the blazer strapped across his back, Rico could see instantly that the stranger was as practical and as accustomed to death as he was. Before standing, the warrior fished through Davis' ammo packs, taking what he could to many discontented murmurs from the team behind him. When the warrior did stand he was too busy inspecting the weapon to listen to Rico.

"Are you quite god damn finished?" Rico asked accusingly. The warrior, apparently more concerned with the weapon than with Rico, hefted the gun in his hands, feeling its weight, before peering down the sights and aiming at make believe targets. "Does it meet your standards, Stranger?" Rico said, being wilfully sardonic.

The warrior was looking at the weapon in his hands again, taking it in from stock to tip. "This is an antique." he said.

Rico felt a scowl forming; it hung heavy above his eyes. "That's the latest state-of-the-art general purpose god-damn armament. Cutting edge."

The Stranger slung the weapon over his back like a natural. "It'll do."

Rico took another step forwards, looking into his own reflection in the stranger's visor. Although Rico was at least five inches shorter, it didn't stop him trying to impose himself over the Warrior. "Who are you?"

The Stranger didn't answer for a moment, glancing around at the collection of curious soldiers around him, before facing Rico again. "Spartan two: John one-one-seven. Master Chief, Petty officer U.N.S.C."

Rico never wavered, but kept his imposing stance. "Never heard of it. " He said matter-of-factly. "Are you fleet?"

"I want to know who you are before I answer any more questions." Said the Stranger.

"Rico, John, M. Field Marshal, mobile infantry." He said, noting the way the Warrior's posture stiffened a little. "...And I outrank you; so I'll ask the god damn questions. But first, we're gonna get out of here." He added, keying the mike on his helmet. "Dropship four, this is Alpha leader. We have found our mark and need transport, over."

A few moments passed. Rico watched Dalray look the stranger up and down, inspecting the configuration of that strange armour that completely encased his body. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. Certainly not M.I. standard issue, that was for sure. And the way the stranger had identified himself played on Rico's mind; as a Field Marshal he was privy to some seriously privileged information and intel, but he had never heard of a battalion that called itself _Spartan_ throughout the entire Federation armed forces. "Delta four, this is Alpha leader, do you copy?" he asked again. The comm stayed silent. Finding himself becoming more agitated, Rico keyed the mike harder and glared into the dawn sky. "Delta four, come in!"

–

The Captain sat at his desk finishing his log entry for the day. He included a few eye witness reports of what had transpired on the planet below and carefully logged the list of casualties for forwarding to Earth so that the next of kin could be informed.

More than the events on the planet surface, his mind turned again and again to the anomaly that the Sentry's sensors had picked up, which had transpired to be a massive alien spacecraft. It was proof of real intelligence out there. The quacks back home still marvelled at the intelligence of the so-called "Brain-bug" which only had—at best--a basic understanding of its species' strengths and weaknesses, and the instinct to use those to its advantage. But this space faring race—these _Hunters_, as they had been referred to in some reports—they had a technological intelligence: an ability to create and invent; a will to use technology to overcome obstacles, and shape their environment at will. A sapient, creative species, much like humanity.

The discovery would turn a lot of heads and open a lot of eyes back on Earth, he was sure; it proved humanity was no fluke, and proved that humanity was not alone in the universe. What other sapient life lived out there? Would they be great scholars, capable of seeing further than their senses? Or beings of logic, wonderments of arts, sage and charitable?

Or would they be cruel, destructive and warlike? Beings which excelled in creating new ways to destroy their enemies and each other? Perhaps the best he could hope for was that, like mankind, they would be all of the above.

As his thoughts continued to meander on the philosophical ramifications of intelligent life out there in the cosmos, the door to his cabin opened, and a tall slender man with sharp angular features entered. His slightly stiff gait made him look ill-at-ease continually. The Captain doubted that the man before him felt much of anything, Since Eben—as he had named himself—was not a true human: he was an artificial man. A synthetic. His eyes flitted around the room, drinking in all the data his mind could process and, as the Captain expected (and suspected Eben was programmed to do) he began speaking in what the Captain guessed was Eben's best approximation of the mundanities of human conversation: "You have dropped the lighting level three points below your normal working level, Captain. May I ask if you have a headache?"

The Captain took a moment to respond, ever wary of Eben, who he considered to be a pale imitation of life—those listless, shifting eyes; that inflection in his voice that always sounded a little superior or insincere.

The contract between Weyland-Yutani and the federation decreed that all federation cruisers were required to carry at least one synthetic in the event that the crew were incapacitated. The synthetics themselves had come a long way since their inception at the labs of Weyland industries. From the decades and centuries since the first AI to when the first Bishop model took its first unsure steps and uttered its first questions through its lifeless rubber lips; through the time of the merger between Weyland industries and the Yutani corporation, the birthing of a corporate colossus, which swallowed up Cyberdine industries and the Tyrell corporation in its gluttonous drive to dominate its sector; through a hundred different conflicts that pushed the technology forwards as it had since the beginning of time, the Synthetics had evolved from crude skeletons of steel and wires into almost biological creatures, whose man-made bodies operated in nearly identical ways to their creators. The hundreds of brilliant minds that had come together under as Weyland-Yutani snowballed had given rise to a race of their own creation, created in their own image.

Yet in doing so, by making their progeny smarter and faster and stronger, had they also given them the means to destroy their creators? It was no wonder the Captain found himself suspicious of all synthetics when they had a god damn built in superiority complex.

"It helps me think." He said, guardedly as always. He set aside the log and regarded the synthetic man with a deliberate look of impatience. "What do you want, Eben?"

"I have been in consultation with _Guardian_, Captain. With the unique life-forms that were brought aboard, we are in agreement that the circumstances meet the requirements of special order six-four-six-three. Eschewing normal communication protocols, _Guardian_ and I agreed the information was of crucial importance and transmitted the medical reports of the fifteen afflicted crewmen."

"Without my authorisation?" remarked the Captain, angered by Eben's words and that damn superior inflection he used, though keeping his temper in check.

"Protocols supercede your command authorisation in this respect, Captain. For your edification I have a list of the directives. Would you like to hear them?"

The Captain remained silent, letting his anger simmer down. "No, that's not necessary, Eben." he said after a lingering pause.

"Have I angered you in some way, Captain?" asked Eben, an eyebrow peaking with curiosity. "If I have, I apologise; aggravation was not my intention."

Distrust, and now simmering resentment nearly made the Captain laugh out loud from sheer spite upon hearing the synthetic speak of anger. "I am concerned at your presumption." He said, sounding calm, but authoritative. "and I am concerned you would come to me after the fact, instead of consulting with me like the you did with _Guardian. _I am the Captain of this vessel, Eben. And I want to know what my crew are doing and for what purpose. Even in the event that my command is superceded by one of your obscure executive commands. That you bypassed me altogether to consult with the ship's computer systems I find suspicious and discourteous, Do you understand?"

"I think I do, Captain." Said Eben, attempting a contrite smile that somehow still looked like a smirk.

"Good." The Captain picked up his log again, with every intention of recording the events of which Eben had partook and divulged. Something suspicious was happening. Something he couldn't quite fathom yet, and might not until it was too late. Without looking up at Eben, whom he distrusted now more than ever, he finished: "You can leave."

–

It had begun as a curiosity; a kind of phenomenon that would have xenobiologists champing at the bit to observe it. It had begun with Keever, then Stihlman. Berger was next. Weitz after her, and so on, until within something just over seventy minutes since the first instance, all of the huggers had died and fallen away from their victims. The affected troopers were placed into observation, with various blood tests being carried out on them under the federation's strict disease control protocols. All were given a clean bill of health, the only symptom was a loss of salt and a sudden iron deficiency—symptoms no worse than a third trimester pregnancy, Doctor Morse noted in his report.

As the Doc prepared to bunk down after a long, damn weird day his personal comm buzzed, requesting he return to med-bay.

"Jonze can handle it, Katie." He responded. "I've been awake for nearly forty hours—I need sleep."

"I understand that, Sir. But Doctor Jonze has said you should see this." countered the late shift med-nurse.

"Goddammit..." grumbled Morse, climbing out of his bunk only mere moments after getting comfortable. He rifled through his locker for a clean set of Whites (the only doctor to still wear them), pulled them on and set off for medical, grumbling about how green and wet behind the ears his latest staff were on the way. As he approached he saw a handful of M.I. grunts peering in the observation window again as if it were a spectator sport. Strangely the troopers looked relieved and concerned at the same time. When they noticed Morse, some uttered a polite but guarded greeting: "Doc."

"What's going on?" asked Morse as he passed.

If any of the grunts did answer, Morse didn't hear it. When he saw the gathering of medics and more grunts clustered around the non-comm who had been hugged ( a term Morse found just a little base and vulgar) his pace quickened. He was half jogging by the time he made it into the room, feeling the dread of some unknown circumstance creeping up on him—a circumstance that he, in all likelihood, would be held accountable for. But as he pushed by the others gathered around the bed, he felt a great wave of relief wash over him.

"Hi, Doc. " Said Keever, mussing his own damp and greasy hair, smiling wearily like he had just awoken from a long restful sleep.

"How do you feel, Sergeant?" Asked Morse, checking Keever's pupillary reflex.

"Tired, hungry.... A little embarrassed."

"Look up." Said Morse, still peering into his eyes. "Why embarrassed, Sergeant?"

"They tell me that I've just spent the last twenty-something hours giving a Bee-Jay to some new bug critter. Top of that I wake up here in just my jockey shorts."

"Look right. I think given the circumstances, your companions—down now, please—have just been trying to make light of the situation. As far as we know the parasite has had no serious adverse effects on your health, but when we return to Earth I'd like to give you a full scan and keep you monitored for a while... maybe a year or so."

"Sounds like you're pulling me off the front lines."

Morse nodded. "With any luck it'll be a temporary measure. A year's R and R would do you the world of good, yes?" Keever smiled and blew out a happy sigh, not believing his luck. "I'll see to it the bureaucrats don't rescind your pay rights or try to back-troop you."

Keever winced and rubbed his chest. "Sounds great, Doc. It cool to get something to eat now? This heartburn is killing me."

"I can give you something for that."

"No thanks, Doc." Said Keever, still wincing, rubbing his chest harder, trying to take deep breaths. "it's nothing that a little mash 'n' meat can't fix."

"In your dreams, Sarge." said a smiling trooper who, Morse presumed, was a friend of Keever's. "We only got the soya stew or the tofu."

Keever rolled his eyes, but was still in good spirit. "Great. Any recommendations, Doc?" he asked.

"The Stew; you need the salt."

"I was just... never mind. " Keever stammered, gently lowering himself to his feet form the bed. "Food first. Then I want to see the little bastard that got me." He finished, taking a few unsteady steps with assistance from Morse.

"It's in the bio-labs, Son. You can see it later."

Keever suddenly went limp, as if his legs could bear his weight no longer. He sagged to his knees, despite the medics around trying to support him, and Morse saw drool running from Keever's mouth and dripping onto the floor. "Something's wrong..." Keever uttered, more to himself than anyone around. "Something's WRONG!"

Keever suddenly looked Morse dead in the eye. It was a look of such dread and fear and pain that Morse's blood ran cold. The man he held laboured so hard for his next breath that a vile sucking sound seemed to come from his very lungs. The clear drool running from the corners of Keever's mouth suddenly flowed crimson, and when Keever finally did suck in enough air to fill his lungs, all he could do was scream.

Everyone around him watched in horror as he spasmed hard, twisting so forcefully that Morse feared he might break his own spine. His legs thrashed uncontrollably over the white plastic tiles on the floor, and his eyes rolled around in his head, almost back to the whites. Morse and the three other medics on shift tried to pin Keever's limbs to the floor as the one and only nurse on shift tried to grab a hypo of sedative. The horrific scene unfurling before her (and the noises—she would never forget the noises: the guttural utterances and thick gurgling sounds that he made, coupled with what was to inevitably happen next) had shaken her up so badly that she fumbled the hypo and dropped it. The hypo smashed on the floor into a puddle of viscous blue liquid and small shards of brittle glass.

"C'mon!" Cried Morse, fighting to hold Keever down. The nurse ran to the nearest Med-dispenser, but was still shaking so badly that it took her three attempts to punch in the key code. When she did manage it, she hauled open the small door, took the nearest pre-measured dose and slotted it into another fresh sterilised hypo.

Morse could only watch, feeling the most helpless he had ever felt in his life as Keever thrashed and convulsed on the floor; he could only watch as Keever began to turn purple, and his tongue jutted from his mouth as if he were being strangled; he could only watch as the tiny capillaries in the whites of Keever's eyes all ruptured, flooding them with crimson; he could only watch as Keever spasmed, his spine arching backwards as if some invisible force were trying to rip out his lungs and still beating heart. He could only watch as Keever screamed hard and hopeless, before his sternum exploded, splattering everyone around with blood.

After that, nobody watched Keever any more.

"Jesus Christ." murmured Morse, thick globules of gore dripping off his brow, nose and chin. The sound of something smashing made everyone start, and when they turned, they saw that the nurse had fainted, smashing her second hypo in as many minutes.

"Oh, my God." Said Jonze, the on-shift medic. "There's something moving in his chest."

Blood had pooled in the fist-sized hole in Keever's chest, and all watched as something obscene and serpentine eased itself out of the cavity. Its eyeless head, filled with needle sharp teeth, snarled, and its long tail coiled around its slender—almost phallic—body like a rattlesnake. In all it was no more than eighteen inches long, but the impression it made left everyone stunned and terrified.

"Nobody move." Whispered Morse. The creature seemed to hear this, and turned to face him, though, Morse noted, he saw neither eyes nor ears. "You. Slowly.. get the sheet. We've got to bag it; Xenobiology have got to see this." He said to the young, pretty trooper at the back of the room. As Stone surreptitiously tried to pull the sheet from the gurney beside her, the thing rounded to face her. Its top lip folding back from its rows of needle teeth that lines its mouth. It hissed. Her nerves shattered. Her hand fell from the gurney, leaving the sheet untouched.

The tiny monster slipped out of the wound in Keever's chest completely. Morse, desperate to catch the thing, lunged at it, but he was too slow. The tiny serpent made a dash for the medical waste chute, with Morse and Jonze in hot pursuit. It scurried up the lid and ducked its head in, prompting Morse to make a desperate lunge from ten feet away like he was trying for a touchdown. Astonishingly, he managed to grasp its tail with the tips of his forefinger and thumb. It turned on him and struck like a viper, sinking its teeth into the flesh of his hand, causing Morse to jump back in fright and pain as it disappeared down the chute to freedom. Breathless, and feeling the first cold wave of panic set in, Morse inspected the wound on his hand. Just past the knuckle of his index finger of his right hand, the wound bled profusely, and when he tried to wiggle his fingers, that digit refused. He grabbed some cotton wadding and dabbed the blood away revealing a tiny halo of teeth marks driven deep into his skin, and in the centre, a deep hole, as if something had lanced through his flesh. He could see the pearlescent off-white ribbon of his severed tendon peeking raggedly out of the wound--The little bastard had somehow pulled it from the bone and left that finger useless. Blood quickly welled up in the wound again, and as Morse continually dabbed it away, Jonze approached with a dressing. "What was that?" He asked, helping to apply it to Morse's hand.

"Something new. Something I haven't seen before."

"Like a bot-fly or something.. Laying its eggs inside a living host." Murmured Heder, the other on-duty Medic, who was helping the collapsed nurse.

"Tell maintenance to jettison the medical waste; we can't have that little bastard running around loose." ordered Morse, wincing as Jonze applied some pressure to the dressing on his hand. Stone, the pretty blonde grunt, set off at a dash out of the room, past the white masks of horror and disbelief of the other troopers at the observation window. Morse suddenly tensed up as a sickening notion curdled his stomach. "Christ..." he said, as if in fright. Suddenly clutching at Jonze's shoulder with his good hand. "There was others." his eyes locked on to Jonze's as they both came to the same horrifying conclusion. "There are fourteen others..."


	5. Chapter 5: Hammerfall

Chapter 5: Hammerfall

The dropship peeled off into the sky within moments of the last trooper disembarking, heading east at Margot Silberman's instruction. She was determined to find out as much about the crashed alien ship and the beings that built it as possible, and opportunities to push the boundaries of science like this were scarce. A case like this—if handled correctly—could lead to a distinguished citizen award: the key out of the armed forces and into the private sector where the money was.

The federation liked to paint service as a duty that reaped its own rewards, but she had seen too much meat go through the grinder to believe it, including her own pound of flesh. The deep scars on her face and neck were proof of that. She had never known the true figures, but she guessed that just over half of all the people enlisted in the armed forces could expect to survive to the end of their active service, and less than a tenth of them could expect any kind of meaningful employment when they did. Her father had done his service like a good little trooper, and returned a legless, broke and suicidal drunk. Margot was determined that wasn't going to be her. To be taken seriously in the academic field, service was a must, though she took her oath through gritted teeth, and swore then and there that her service was only a means to an end, and swore to survive it.

The dropship skimmed the mountaintops, passing deep furrows in the dirt, where anonymous scorched debris from the alien ship had plowed into the ground at speed. Vast pillars of black smoke reached into the sky higher than she ever imagined they could; the destruction must be beyond her estimates, she guessed.

Gibbons was nervous, but trying to look at ease. He was failing miserably, of course, but that was understandable to Margot; they had no idea what they would find down there. She was grateful they had all had weapons training, though she doubted any of them had picked up a weapon since basic—Much like Margot herself. Ever since her accident she had never entertained the notion of picking up a weapon again; people could say what they wanted about the service history of the M22 _Blazer_, but she knew from bitter experience that when one fucked up, they did so spectacularly. A single jammed explosive tipped round in an overheated breach had stripped her of her beauty and, for a few years, her self-confidence. It was only by sheer freak luck that she wasn't blinded by the hot shards of gun metal when her blazer locked up and exploded in her face. At least she still had her smarts. That was what was most important. Generations of battle scarred soldiers had proven that looks meant less in this age than smarts, and even if Margot had joined those ranks of chewed up troopers sacrificed to the meat grinder, she knew she wasn't as dispensable as most.

She pulled the band from her ponytail and rolled her hair into a bun at the back of her head, using the stylus from her datacom as a pin.

"Can you release the clamps?" she shouted to the pilot. "I want to check our supplies."

The pilot gave a quick thumbs-up without looking back, but added: "For now. But at the first sign of chop I want your asses back in the seats."

"Deal." Said Margot, just as the drop brace gave a little, before retracting into the ceiling.

Her team consisted of herself, an expert exobiologist, most recently responsible for the discovery that the bugs had an aversion to frequencies above four-hundred megahertz at normal air pressures, which had subsequently lead to the development of the whistler bullets, which were designed to 'whistle' at the offending frequency when fired, and thus halt the inexorable charge of swarming bugs. The bullets were still in the development stages, but early trials had shown they looked like promising additions to the MI arsenal.

Next up was Steve Gibbons, a entomologist who specialised in the bugs. He was a nervous looking man who thought he was out of his depths on this trip; of all the things he expected to see aboard the wreckage, the bug wasn't one. He had heart, and smarts enough for Margot to respect his opinions, but he was naive enough to believe service in the forces was to the betterment of society as a whole.

Fran Quinn was the Sentry of Eons' on-board imaging specialist, making her invaluable to Margot on this investigation. Her optical , thermal and background radiation speciality may have been a mouthful to everyone around her, but her findings could shed light on just about anything she studied, from distant stars to microbes.

Shigeru Miyamoto and Colm DeBier were resident astrophysicists and mathematicians, chosen for their experience—which was minor, to say the least-- in interstellar metallurgy in the private sector. Their choice to enlist was out of necessity, since the federation had pulled the plug on the contract that their employer had depended on to stay afloat. It was only by sheer coincidence that both found themselves aboard the Sentry of Eons science team at the same time.

Margot undid the straps on her equipment crate and opened it. Her vital equipment was packed away in foam to prevent damage, but some were so sensitive that, even in their protective cushion, a small accidental knock could potentially screw up the calibration. Or worse.

"Forget the spectroscopy gear;" Said Fran, kneeling beside her. "It's tetchy in the field and usually gives latent readings. Just take samples—anything will do—and I'll run it properly in the lab."

"Okay. But run a radiation check as soon as we're down; I want to know what kind of rads are down there before I set foot in there."

Fran smiled at Margot, amused by her colleagues distrust of the federation's tried and tested detection methods. "Still don't trust the Tatts, huh?" She said, referring to the isotopes every science officer had tattooed under the skin of their right hand that bloomed into black squares, indicating different levels of exposure. One square was acceptable for short repeated exposure. Four bordered on radiation sickness. But the main reason Margot didn't trust them was simple: It was to simplistic, and she liked to be as informed about those kind of dangers as possible. It was all very well to trust the system if exposure was under the limits of safety, but in situations where a reactor core had threatened to blow, Margot had heard stories of people trying to stabilise the problem before being caught in a massive pulse, all of them blissfully unaware that in that fraction of a second they had received a massive, lethal dose, and those slowly reacting isotopes had barely changed in opacity.

"Not now. Not ever. You know it's a cost cutting exercise. And I don't like feeling like a guinea pig for the damn federation."

"No doubt." Fran nodded. "The number crunchers do like their statistics. But you don't think they're that much worse than us, do you?"

"It's a question of morality"

Fran's smile broadened into a grin, amused by Margot's suspicion of the federation. "You think too much." she said.

–

The dropship vectored in low over the massive alien wreck, and the pilot held a hover as Margot joined him up front, both trying to agree on a suitable place to land. In the rear, Fran peered at the Geiger counter mounted on her wrist like a timepiece.

"So far it's okay. The right side of safe. It could just be B.C.R dissipation from the hull. Assuming they don't have.. you know.. force fields or something."

"They don't look much more advanced than us." Commented Margot, inspecting the wreckage.

"Their propulsion system is still a mystery. _Guardian_ couldn't pick up a single ion or hydrogen atom." Said Colm, joining the conversation.

"I think it's safe to assume they don't have warp drive." Said Fran, without attempting to mask the irony in her voice.

"You don't get it; we couldn't find a single exhausted particle. Not one. _Guardian_'s been searching since it was picked up. Not one single neutron or electron. Whatever they're using, it's clean. Impossibly clean."

Shigeru rubbed both his temples, before snapping his fingers as he recollected something. "Zero-point."

Colm cocked him a wink and a winning grin "Give the man a hand. You're absolutely on track, my friend. Zero -point energy. Totally theoretical. Has been for centuries."

"Impossible; all energy is converted from matter. " Said Margot, unseen from the cockpit.

Colm shook his head. "Theory says that zero-point is the lowest form of energy in a vacuum, so it can't be removed from any energetic system. It's like dark matter: we know it's there, we can see its effects, but we can't detect it. The energy is already spent from it's potential, we just need to find a way to harness it."

"It's science fiction." Said Fran, looking totally unconvinced.

"No." Said Colm, beginning to bristle a little with irritation at none of his female contemporaries taking him seriously. "It's just a theory. And it's about to get tested."

With their attention turned back to the crashed alien ship, and not Colm's speculation on its propulsion systems, Margot found herself a little thrilled and a little nervous at the same time. So much of her future could depend on what she found down there; if it went well, she would be set for life, a pioneer in her field. On the other hand it could all come to nothing, and that was about the worst thing she could imagine: an opportunity wasted.

"That's funny." murmured the Pilot, and began hitting buttons on a console above his head. Before she could ask him what he was talking about Fran peered through the hatch and beckoned for Margot to join her in the back.

"You should see this."

Everyone was gathered around the hub. It was Fran's main gizmo that synchronised and collated the information from her myriad of other instruments--essentially a portable supercomputer that could extrapolate her findings and display it in real time in a wide spectrum. The grainy display showed a glowing white shape that appeared to have some kind of symmetry to it, but was otherwise indiscernible. "What the hell is that?" asked Colm. Fran began phasing through the optical spectrum, in which the object didn't seem to exist, except for at the extremes of the ultra-violet range, where it appeared as an irregular black mass that was even harder to pick out any semblance from, compared to the gamma image.

Fran sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "I give up... a light anomaly, maybe.. Some kind of Bi-polar field that attracts and deflects light at almost all visible wavelengths."

"Okay, I'm gonna call you out on this one, Francesca. Here's the trillion-cred question: What's causing it?" asked Colm.

Fran nibbled the tip of her finger, absorbed by the object on-screen. She sighed again. "What do you want: Truth or speculation?"

"Your best estimate please, Fran." said Margot.

"Well... due to the nature of the find, I guess that it could be ejecta from the wreck. If you're right in theory, Colm, it could be some kind of residual energy from the propulsion systems. That's all I've got."

Margot looked around the others, all of them—even including Fran—looking as unconvinced as she felt. That black mass on the display... could it prove a risk too far for her to ask her team to take? This was her best and probably only chance, and to pass it up because she lost her nerve... that just seemed pathetic. From doubtful and hesitant, to resolute and determined in a moment, she stood and said: "I'm making the call. Suit up."

–

Master Chief watched with growing curiosity as the Field Marshal tried to contact his ship. Something seemed familiar about all of this somehow... A sensation like deja-vu, but much more vague whispered of a danger to come. There was only two things he was sure of: He was alive, and thanks to the malfunction aboard the Diadem, he was in the past, in the last age of conflict before the war with the Covenant had begun. Almost two-hundred years before his birth. The antique weapon in his hands proved that on its own; it felt bulky, heavy. Ungainly. No ammo display. Apparently no smart-aim. Overall, it felt cheap and underwhelming. Better than nothing, he guessed, but an antique at best.

From what he had gleaned from the Soldiers around him, the old Federation was still in power. That meant a time before the seceding of the new United Nations from the Federation. Before the great unification war, which was the main study texts for all Spartans. And here he was, standing among the heroes he would read about in the history texts. The thought of the bleak future they faced.. that he now faced. He silently damned the Forerunners; as a species their genius couldn't be denied, but as a people, their fatalistic solutions bordered on madness, and it seemed that whenever he travelled the same path trodden by the forerunners eons ago, it always led to trouble. Saddest of all was the issue that was rising to prominence in his mind now, though it was perhaps the most pertinent quandary he faced for the moment:

Should they be told?

The Field Marshal had left a beacon of sorts with the body of the trooper that had been killed, before he had led them a few miles east to a glade and set the squad into defensive positions. To the Spartan, it was all textbook stuff—at least in his day and age. For all he knew it could have been some revolutionary new tactic. Or not. Suddenly it seemed that many things he took for granted would need to be re-evaluated.

The glade itself seemed like a peaceful place, though something about the atmosphere within stole its natural beauty away, transplanting it only with a sense of vulnerability. The leader, who had pulled rank on him earlier, was talking with his officer. Both looked concerned, occasionally glancing into the sky, at the surrounding area, and occasionally at the Chief himself. Wary.

From his peripheral vision he saw the teams of soldiers watching him very carefully. Something about him had set them on edge, and he wasn't sure what.

"Damn... you feel that heat building already?" Said the leader, approaching the Spartan, helmet off, showing his head-full of greying hair, limp with sweat. He wiped the sweat from his brow onto his pant leg, before pulling the helmet back on. "They don't trust you. My guys."

"They don't know me."

"You're not one of the rebels; there's no way you could've survived the bugs this long if you were. So who are you?"

"Did you establish contact with you ship?" asked the Warrior deflecting the question again.

The officer at the leader's side took a step forwards, trying to impose himself over the Chief much as the leader attempted. "Answer the question." He said firmly. The Chief observed the officer's dogtags. Dalray. A lieutenant. If he was to play by their rules, Master Chief could pull rank on the lieutenant as the Field Marshal had done to him earlier. Forsaking an argument, he decided against it.

"We need to talk." He said.

"Son, you got that right." Said Rico. His eyes fell on the device on the Spartan's wrist: those twin blades glinted in the early morning sun. So how did this Master Chief petty officer of a unit he had never heard of come to be in possession of alien weaponry? What was his connection to this Hunter species? And just how many of them were there? A thousand questions needed answering, but the situation with the Sentry of Eons was quickly gathering a more pressing urgency in him. Dalray's theory that they were in a communication blackspot seemed a sound one, and the only way to test it was to get to the other side of the metal-rich mountains, which meant a long slog through dangerous terrain with the very threats he had deemed unacceptable just hours earlier. See if you can raise the dropship. Use the emergency freq; it's your best shot." He said to Dalray. The lieutenant, being neither stupid or ignorant of when he wasn't wanted, departed immediately, following his orders. When he had gone, Rico turned back to the Warrior. "Okay, soldier. You have my undivided attention. Now start talking."

The inscrutable visor of the Chief's helmet turned from Rico and looked back over his shoulder, back in the direction they had come from. He had a hell of a story to tell, and was unsure where to begin. Hell, he was unsure where it began—was it here on a distant battlefield in their time, before the war with the Covenant, the time of his ancestors? Or Here and Now, the present, by his own reckoning of time, when the war was over? How did one speak about the past in the present tense? Instead, a third option presented itself. It would be asking for a huge leap of faith from them, but somehow it just seemed to bridge that gap. "There's a war coming." he said. "Worse than anything you've ever known."

Rico's brow became heavy with a frown. "That sounds a lot like a threat, Soldier."

"Not a threat; a warning." When the Chief spoke the words he could see that the Field Marshal didn't much differentiate a threat from a warning—both were more or less considered hostile gestures by the jaded old man.

Rico had to stop himself levelling the Blazer in his hands at the Warrior. The feeling that he was going around in circles with the guy was infuriating and only topped the delightful little cupcake that was his day: Cut off, pissed off, lost and, as always, in peril—though in what kind of peril he hadn't fully gauged. "This shit's gone far enough." He jabbed a finger at the stranger before him: "I want to know who you are and where the hell you came from."

"Then you're going to have to listen, and listen hard. Because you're not going to like what you're going to hear."

"Spill." Said Rico, jaw set hard.

"Good." The Spartan paused for a moment, taking a seat on a large boulder behind him. He set the Blazer aside and knitted his fingers together, and looking up at Rico, who stood over him, he began. "I was born in the year twenty-five-eleven."

This time Rico did level his gun at the Chief's head. The Warrior seemed unperturbed, gazing into the barrel before turning back to Rico, whose teeth were grinding so hard in their sockets he thought they might shatter. "Enough of this horse shit!" Rico spat.

"I was kidnapped as a child and placed into the Spartan training regime under Doctor Halsey and Chief Mendez" continued the Warrior calmly. "we were trained as warriors for the defence of Earth and her colonies against a coalition of alien races that declared war humanity. We called them the Covenant...." He continued on, telling Rico—who finally seemed to be listening—a brief history of the future. From the start of the Covenant war onward, to the Halo network and the Flood, to the assault on Earth itself by the Covenant forces and the battle of the Ark, the Diadem, the Fold, until finally reaching the end of his tale, when he awoke on this world, finding strange dead creatures and deadly living ones.

Dalray had joined them again when the Chief was halfway into the telling of his tail, but when he tried to inform Rico that the dropship was still unreachable, he was waved down. It wasn't long before he too was drawn into the Spartan's story.

For the moment both of them stood in silence, mulling over what they had been told. Though the Chief could see that Rico wasn't sure if he believed him or not, the lieutenant looked at him like he were a mangy mongrel. Finally, Rico shouldered his blazer again. "I'm not sure who's crazier, you or me—and I'm not saying I believe you either. But I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt."

"What?" Uttered Dalray, astonishment and incredulity made his whole body fidget when he said it. "I'm sorry, Sir, but there's more shit in that story than on my uncle's Rhynth farm on Ryushi."

"Could you leave us, Lieutenant?" Said Rico, plainly an order and not a request. This time he was not pausing to consider if Dalray felt slighted or not.

For his part, the lieutenant seemed happy to leave, casting a wordless suspicious glance at the Spartan before he left. "Absolutely, Sir."

Rico and Master Chief watched him cross to a small group of troopers who were watching the south-west ridge that led to the glade plateau. All of them fired off questions at him as soon as he arrived, but all he did was shrug his shoulders and peer back at the Chief.

"When did you stop doubting your ears?" Asked the Warrior, still watching Dalray and the others.

"Right around New Mombasa. There's no conceivable way you could know about that base; it's been classified above top secret for more than two centuries. The detail you describe it... some of those revisions and adaptations are only being implemented now. You're talking about them in past tense. Run down and old. Besides... the shit I saw two nights ago was not natural. I've been on some crazy world and seen some crazy shit, but I've never seen—scratch that.... I've never _felt_ anything like that in my life. Against every natural instinct in my body, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Master Chief. I just have one more question. It might have some bearing on our situation."

"Fire away." Said the Chief, plainly weary of answering the same question in so many different ways. Surprisingly, Rico's question was more relevant than he expected.

"This big bad you fought. The parasites?"

"The Flood."

"The Flood... Do you think they came through with you?"

The Warrior peered back over his shoulder again, back in the direction they had come from again. Rico had noticed him doing it again and again, always presuming, until now, that he was keeping an eye out for the bugs, both new and old, and maybe those hunter things too. Only now did he really understand his unease. "I don't know." Said The Warrior, almost in a sigh. "I don't know."

–

Van Buren, Troy, Aguerre and Kovacs listened on, mostly in amusement as Lieutenant Dalray recounted as much as he could remember of the Master Chief's story. Their grins seemed to grow with every moment, and Dalray himself began to feel ridiculous telling the ridiculous tale.

"You don't buy that bullshit, do you, El-tee?" asked Aguerre, chowing down on a steaming soya stew ration pack.

"I'll leave the tall tales for bed time, Aguerre." Said Dalray, surprised that any of his squad would even ask; he thought they knew him better than that. When he turned the Field Marshal and the stranger were still talking, and Dalray felt his suspicions peak in him. "The Stranger is making some kind of play. I don't know why and I don't know what for, but he's playing games."

"What about those damn switchblades on his arm? He with those things or not?" Said Van Buren, squinting through a haze of smoke from the cigarette jammed between his lips. The look in his eyes unsettled Dalray, though he was loath to admit it. It was always as if Van Buren was never quite with it... never quite in the moment...

"Says he found one of 'em dead."

"Well that's not hard on this rock." Quipped Kovacs, so amused at himself that he laughed, snorting and braying like a little donkey.

"Guys..." Said Troy, though it went unnoticed by the others.

"..and he never even mentioned the acid bleeders..." Dalray continued.

"You think he's one of the rebels?" Asked Aguerre.

"Guys!" Shouted Troy, at the end of his apparently short supply of patience.

"What is it, trooper?" Said Dalray, reminding Troy of just who the hell he was speaking to. Troy pointed to the tree line in the south west, about fifty meters behind the Field Marshal and the Master Chief. "What the hell is that?"

Everyone peered in the direction he pointed, seeing nothing but the tall ferns that ringed the glade. "I don't see anything, Tee-man." Said Kovacs.

"Something there." Said Troy. "Something big." he finished, bringing his weapon to bear. Out of paranoia or their training, nobody could have answered why they immediately followed Troy at that moment.

Dalray turned to Troy scowling. "When in basic did they tell you to shout '_guys_' on contact, Asshole?" he growled at a near whisper as he crouched to a prone position "You're supposed to be a professional, you moron." He finished, keying the mike button on his helmet three times. Rico, upon hearing the danger signal turned to face him from across the glade. Dalray was already on his way, running prone, leaving the four troopers behind him in a defensive position. He signalled with hand gestures at Rico as he approached in silence:

DANGER. SOUTHWEST.

–

Rico turned in time to the patch of ferns rustled by something hidden within. He signalled all of his men in the glade to hold their positions and crept forwards a few steps to take cover behind the large boulder that the Chief had been using as a seat, closely followed by Dalray. The Spartan crept southwards, to where the mouldering remains of a once substantial tree lay rotting, having long since tumbled into the glade. Apart from the perimeter watches, which had to keep eyes out in all directions, everyone watched that patch of ferns with baited breaths and primed trigger fingers to see what would emerge.

When it did saunter into the glade, it seemed somehow anti-climactic, but also a great relief to most.

The Spartan warrior rose from behind the fungus strewn tree trunk, letting his newly acquired machine gun fall to his side.

"What the...?" Whispered Dalray following Rico as he stood from behind their cover, though both kept their guns trained on the beast. "What the hell is that? Like a moose or a reindeer or something?"

Indeed it was. It stood as tall as a man to its shoulder, and trotted around the glade verge, seemingly not put off by the humans or the hundreds of explosive tipped rounds they were aiming at it. Its head sported large majestic antlers, and with its strange dark and forlorn eyes it observed the humans around it, solemnly chewing the ferns like cud. Its hairless hide was striped with dark and light browns that would serve it well as camouflage in the darkest, densest parts of the forest and jungle.

The atmosphere calmed, a great uplifting relief that it didn't look like a creature that wanted to tear them limb from limb. The moment, for Master Chief at least, was all too fleeting. His helmet's aural receivers picked up a deep bass noise that was slowly growing in intensity. He looked around the glade, into the sky, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise. The beast noticed it too after a few seconds; its ears pricked up and those big dark eyes bulged wide as it first glared around the glade in apparent panic, before rearing like a horse and bolting through the glade at a sprint.

The Spartan crossed to Rico, who watched the beast tear through the glade and disappear into the thick flora on the other side. "Something's coming."

Without another word, Dalray crouched back into his defensive position, while Rico silently gestured for the Chief to follow him. The watches got serious again, levelling their aim into the jungle that surrounded the glade while the main battle groups, including Rico and the Spartan assumed their position. Each cluster of the battle groups were devised by Rico to allow concentrations of fire that could be switched from one area to another at a moment's notice, and allow any exposed or over-run forward units to fall back while avoiding crossfire. It wasn't ideal, but it worked.

The bass rumble became truly audible now, and nervous troopers glanced at each other questioningly. Through their feet they began to feel a distinct vibrating sensation. At the base of the rocks where Dalray was waiting with baited breath, the Spartan watched loose gravel dance and jitter.

From out of the jungle another of the large cervidae-like creatures erupted at a sprint. A handful of on-edge troopers opened fire, tearing the animal apart until it crashed to the ground in a puddle of crimson blood. Another tore into the glade, but this time the troopers had enough wits about them to stay their trigger fingers. The beast galloped past the clusters of soldiers without a second glance. Dalray listened intently. Somehow he knew that sound; it seemed so familiar, and stirred something in him that screamed for him to haul ass and get anywhere but here. As the sound grew in intensity, and the vibrations travelled up his legs, his mind was transported back nearly three decades to a vague recollections of his childhood, and suddenly it all snapped into place. "A stampede." He uttered.

Rico cast his eyes over his shoulder and regarded Dalray for a moment. "Stampede?"

Dalray nodded. He hadn't heard that sound since he was a boy, living on his uncle's ranch on Ryushi. The native form of cattle on that planet—hulking rhino-like mammals called Rhynths—were nervous herd animals, and would stampede regularly across the scrublands and through Ryushi's gulleys and canyons. He had only spent seven months living there before the planet's harsh, dry climate and hard living conditions began taking their toll on the already slight boy Dalray had been in his childhood. He had been subsequently sent to the federation's bootcamp on Nyxsis. The rest was history. "Remember what I said about my uncle's farm? We can't stay. We have to get moving, now. Now!"

Rico took the advice and began issuing orders, which Dalray immediately ordered belayed. "Not east, Sir; you'll stay right in their path. We should break north and hope we get far enough for them to pass behind us.."

"Done." Said Rico, marching out into the glade. "Roughneck one, we're skinning out north. Run as fast as your damn legs can carry you!" before he had finished he was already at a jog. Seconds later he and his squads were running at full tilt, down the tricky terrain of the ridge.

Master Chief kept pace with Rico and Dalray at the head of the scramble, though he could have easily outpaced them. He watched the west through the strobe of thick tree trunks that punctuated the shafts of morning sunlight. After a few moments he saw the wide wall of charging animals crest the gentle slopes and choke up the tree studded horizon. Dalray saw it too. "There they are! There!" he exclaimed. The ground physically trembled underfoot now, and the thunder of the thousands of head of stampeding beasts drowned out almost all other noises, so that each person could only hear their own ragged breaths and the beasts bearing down on them.

"Too late!" Cried Rico, "Get behind cover and stay there, god dammit!"

The squad splintered apart, taking cover behind the wide, robust tree trunks, or under the small rocky outcroppings forced up through the ground by some ancient quake. The beasts barrelled past like a force of nature, eyes wide, tongues lolling from their mouths which ran with thick frothy drool.

Rico dared to peek around the trunk of the tree he had taken cover behind. The startled beast he came face to face with tried to skid to a halt in the soft mulch underfoot, and as it's momentum carried it further forward still, it reared its head in panic. It's massive antlers hooked under the cusp of Rico's battle helmet—only missing his right eye by fractions of an inch. The impetus of the creature hauled Rico cleanly off his feet, the helmet cleanly off his head, and he found himself exposed in the open, in the direct path of the stampede again.

The Spartan witnessed as Rico was flung into the open, and leapt from the safety of his own cover to help. Rico had curled into a fetal ball as hooves thundered all around him. The Chief reached for him from behind the very tree Rico had used for cover, grasping Rico's ankle and receiving a swift glancing kick to the head for his effort. The beast responsible stumbled over him and hit the ground, landing in its back, legs jittering and shaking, apparently hurt. Seeing no other way to help Rico, the Chief aimed his blazer around the tree into the stampeding herd. The dry rattle of the blazer drowned out even the thunder of the stampede, and brought down three head at nearly point-blank range. He used the brief break to haul Rico to safety, who subsequently checked himself over for broken bones, breathing hard and heavy.

The jittering beast that had collided with the Spartan before landing hurt upon the ground was now being trampled alive by its own. It fitted and spasmed hard as its eyes rolled around frantically in its head. For a fraction of a second the Chief thought he saw the skin at the centre of its ribcage become distended, as if its very heart were almost leaping out its chest...

Rico watched the blur of tough, hairless hides flee past, managing to catch a glimpse of Dalray between each. Dalray was hand signalling something, though the message was getting lost between the constant breaks of passing beasts. When Dalray finally gave up the ghost and just pointed Rico saw what he was talking about: the creatures were collapsing to the ground, exhausted, leaving the trail where the stampede was passing littered with bodies. Many more dashed by, before their legs buckled beneath them just fifty, sixty, seventy yards ahead, bringing them to a crashing halt. All lay where they dropped, fitting and spasming like the one before Rico and the Chief.

The Spartan tugged at Rico's fatigues and both watched with rising relief as the horde of stampeding creatures petered out and disappeared onto the distance.

They emerged from cover into a scene of carnage: the forest floor churned into mud, hundreds of the beasts lying shuddering in the ooze. As the sounds of the stampede faded, everyone could hear the racking cries of the distressed animals. The trampled one at the Chief's feet began thrashing the air with its long limbs, and its cries seemed so close to those of a human being that Rico—who was long since accustomed to the sound—actually felt a cold shiver crawl down his spine. Then, a sound like ripping leather. The beast's chest heaved one, two, three times, bursting out from within, and suddenly Rico found himself watching a small critter, the likes of which he'd never seen, punch cleanly through the animal's ribs. The vile little serpent hissed at them once, then swiftly burrowed into the churned mud in an instant, and was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

Through an astonished fugue in his mind, he heard others calling for him, pointing to other beasts that lay around.

"This can't be good, whatever it is." Said the Spartan, aiming his weapon at the chest of the next closest beast. Almost in unison, the chest of the hundreds of downed beasts began erupting with the same, loathsome serpent-like creatures that they had witnessed moments earlier. Like the one before them, they also scattered--some into the mud; some into the undergrowth, seeking sanctuary among the shrubs and dense ferns. The Chief pulled the trigger of his Blazer, blowing one of the hideous chestburster creatures to vapour as it tried to writhe free from the ribcage of its victim.

The jaded old man in Rico was completely unsurprised to see its blood dissolve the shattered ribs and tough hide its host. "God Damn." he murmured.

The troopers began to regroup slowly, guns poised in anticipation of an attack from the little critters. Master Chief looked around at the wake of the stampede. "Hundreds." He said crouching beside one of the carcasses. "Look around; there's hundreds of them."

"I don't like this place." Said Azumi out loud. When the others, including Rico, looked to her, she could see they echoed the sentiment. "Can't you feel it? I feel like a fish in a barrel. Something big is happening on this world. Something we do not understand."

"Enough. Trooper." Said Rico. Though he felt compelled to agree with her one-hundred percent, all her words were doing was breeding fear, and having been awake for something over forty hours now, he found fear had a way of worming through the weary defences you put up. It was still true for him, even after forty years of service, as it was for any noob: You let it in, and fear would make you its bitch.

A few feet away he watched a couple of troopers inspecting one of the carcasses. They seemed fascinated by its head for some reason, and when he looked closely at the one by his feet, he saw peculiar marks run from its snout and mouth towards the back of its head. The hide of its neck carried angry ligature marks where blood had risen to the surface, and the skin was mottled with bruises. When he turned to the curious troopers again, he saw one covering his face with his hand in mime, as if his hand were some sort of attacking creature...

"Jesus..." He uttered as the pieces clicked into place, his mind conjuring up the image of Sergeant Keever lying on the ground, his face smothered by that hideous spider-bug, surrounded by baffled medics when he had first come across Alpha squad in that valley barely more than twenty four hours ago.

"What's wrong now?" asked the Spartan at his side bluntly as he rose to his feet from the carcass he had been prodding curiously.

"The Sentry..." Rico answered. Cold panic gripped his guts for the first time in a long time. Not for himself, but for the hundreds of souls still aboard the Starship high above.

–

As he searched the jungle the emotions stirring in Phay'd conflicted with each other confusingly; The seeding seemed to be taking hold amongst the herbivorous species on the planet, despite the catastrophes of just hours ago. The Queen had disappeared into a volcanic area to the south east—an area dominated by steep mountains and deep, dark fissures and gnarled dark plains of petrified basalt—followed by two Yautja that Phay'd instinctively knew he would never see again. Even despite the setback of losing the Queen, the seeding was still taking hold. He watched with a sense of apprehension and glee as the first of the Kainde Amedha began to hatch from their hosts, causing the docile beasts to stampede hard through the jungle to the east, is if the numerous seeded among them could somehow escape their fate by running.

Yet still, he was stranded on a dangerous unknown alien world, tasked with ensuring the hard meat could get a foothold on it, despite the still unknown threat that could take fully blooded Yautja to pieces in seconds, while also protecting the Ancient Dek'd'tor, whom he revered highly, but was forced to leave behind for the sake of speed. His duty was beginning to feel like a burden, but it was _his_ burden to bear, and his duty to uphold. To abandon both would be beyond dishonour.

He and the survivor of the seeder—the one he had dubbed Claw—were still trying to find their way back to the ancient Yautja and the one left to guard him. Such was his rush to ascertain the fate of the main seeding craft, that he had lost his bearings, and couldn't find his way back to the others. Perhaps they had headed east, to where the mothership had crashed, and where surely the other seeding craft would be converging to investigate. Unless he found them, he would never know for sure. To presume so and later find that he had left them behind would be nothing short of abandonment, but to endlessly search the jungle would only be a fool's errand.

Claw suddenly stopped, dropping from the thick limb he clung to and landing lithely on another a few feet below. He peered down to the ground attentively. Phay'd slowed to a halt and climbed out on a higher bough that ran almost adjacent to the one Claw was perched upon. Something lay on the soft loam around the base of the tree--something that was, until recently, living. It's body was displayed in cool blues and greens in the ultra-violet spectrum, but its shape and size were irregular. Phay'd tapped commands into the small console mounted on his left arm, and set his visor to scan mode. The mysterious thing on the ground showed in few of the wavelengths, and was still vague and irregular, until his visor flashed into the magnetic spectrum that the hard meat showed up in. Now, interestingly, he could clearly see the creature below. It was some kind of huge insect that reminded him of the crib-suckers of his home world, but on a much, much larger scale. It had four long legs protruding from its thorax, and another two shorter legs that hung beside its massive jaws—perhaps some evolutionary device to channel food into that forbidding maw. Beside it lay the mangled corpse of a Kainde Amedha crawler that appeared to have attempted to implant the insect creature with it's deadly seed. There was a sickening irony he found in the idea of hard meat trying to impregnate hard meat; the Kainde Amedha using the impostor hard meat—this Zabin Amedha—to birth the next generation. The idea gave him pause for thought as he pondered what such a monstrosity would look like.

When he zoomed the view in further, he could see that the crawler had been bitten almost in half by the large insect creature, and that its acid blood had dissolved the hard shell and soft flesh of its killer and intended victim, mortally wounding it.

He was without a doubt that the dead Zabin Amedha at the foot of the tree was the same species that Gryshh had warned him of earlier. They would make formidable prey for the hunt, but now was not the time; they had to keep moving.

Trying to find the other seeding craft seemed the only real option. With a little luck, they might stumble across the others on the way.

–

"It was big, man. I mean, like, man big. Bigger!"

"That's impossible; these things only hatched four hours ago!" barked Troutman. Rain, splattered all over with blood that mostly wasn't his own, and who was blistered down his neck, left arm and back with second degree burns, felt his last nerve bend to almost breaking point.

"I'm telling you! What the fuck do you think happened to Carlson!? Look at me!"

"Easy, Ellis." Said Jonze, who was trying to stem the bleeding from a wound in Rain's leg; if the thing that had got Carlson had hit Rain's leg just an inch or two higher, he'd be zipped up in a body bag too—how it missed his femoral artery, he didn't know, but Rain was one lucky S.O.B.

"You better recall the other search groups, man. I popped that thing five times with the thirty-two... it just kicked me away and tore into Carlson. I'm telling you, man: Whatever they are, they're winning."

" You were given specific orders not to fire on them by the Med-team! Their blood could melt a hole in the hull of this vessel!" The Captain waded into the gathering around Rain, flushing angrily.

Rain's face warped into disgust and borderline antipathy, but just as he was about to release a volcanic tirade, Troutman's radio buzzed with tinny voices and fading alien shrieks. "This is group two in propulsion! We've got two men down and have lost the hostiles! We think they're headed for the ventilation systems!"

Troutman wriggled out of the huddle around Rain and keyed the radio. "Any luck taking any of the hostiles down, Group two?"

"That's a negative, Sir..."

He grimaced internally, but kept his voice calm and level. "Roger that. Be advised that the hostiles may be growing in size rapidly. Hold your position. Also be advised that the ceasefire order still stands—do not fire on a hostile under any circumstances. Tazers only. Do you copy?"

"Copy that. Out." said the voice over the radio, plainly pissed off and afraid.

"Tazers don't do shit.." remarked Rain, looking at Troutman and burning with resentment.

In only four hours the things had hatched and managed to cut the _Sentry_ in two. As soon as the contamination had been picked up the fore bulkheads had closed off decks A through J, effectively sealing the fore section of the _Sentry_ and preventing any chances of the aliens making it there. And since each of the five subsections had their own closed-circuit recirculators, that meant that even their ventilation systems were cut off from the rest of the ship. It was a clever amendment to the original flawed design carried out during the Sentry's last refit that would allow the crucial systems to operate even if the rest of the ship was crippled.

The bridge, navigations and communications were isolated and safe, and that in the very least was a good thing. But that left other areas of vital importance vulnerable and exposed: the Med-bays for one--the wounded had to be tended and the idea of moving them and the supplies needed to treat them was daunting. The galley; private quarters and barracks alike; the armoury; propulsion; drop bays; cargo bays and on and on—dozens of areas now exposed and open to the aliens, which were leading the score card so far by five to nil.

"Then how do we beat them?" Someone asked in the huddle, their voice cracked with emotion and frustration. Frustrations that Troutman shared: How could you beat a creature that bled highly corrosive acid when aboard a ship in the vacuum of outer space without melting a hole right through the god damn hull?

"Sarge..." Rain beckoned Troutman back into the squeeze around him.

"What is it, Soldier?"

"...after that thing killed Carlson and came after me it tore into one of the hydrogen lines from the fuel charger.... I didn't notice before I opened up.... Shit went up like the Hindenburg...." He finished, gesturing to the extensive burns and blisters down the left side of his body. The Captain's face and mood blackened with Rain's admission. "It scared the fucker but good... took off like hell was on its ass. The fire... it was scared of fire..."

–

Pharaoh's group were just behind propulsion, and had heard the radio chatter between group two's leader (sounded like Greene to her, who didn't easily buckle under pressure—much like herself) and Sergeant Troutman. Her group, already on edge as they crept about the dim confines of the bridges over the huge coolant tanks, felt their nerves teeter even closer to the edge.

The gantry bridges spanning the vast tanks of milky white coolant felt flimsy and rickety as her group crept out into the gloom. The dim overhead lamps refracted off the surface of the coolant, which shuddered and rippled with the vibrations from the oscillator coils deep below, throwing strange ghostly shapes onto the walls around. "Keep your eyes and ears open, guys." Said Pharaoh as she led the way across the bridge.

"Goddamn Greene!" exclaimed Wright, eye-balling the single puny-looking tazer each team had been given when they had been sent to capture the critters, Of course, at that time they were looking for little things... not much bigger than a weasel someone had told him. If the radio chatter was accurate, and not just the exaggerations of a few scared troopers then, Wright imagined, the shit was locked on target and about to hit the fan at Mach one. "If his group has chased that thing in here, I'm gonna kill him!"

"Shut up!" Whispered Pharaoh, angling her flashlight down the length of the bridge.

"This thing doesn't feel safe." Said Krausman, joining Pharaoh in whisper. He grasped one of the braces that the bridge was suspended from and gave it a half-hearted shake. "I don't think it's supposed to support three people."

Pharaoh, Wright and Krausman continued over the bridge, which quivered and rattled with each footstep, making it feel and sound suspiciously unsafe. "You would've thought they'd have done something about these deathtraps during the refits, wouldn't ya? But Noooooo.... outta sight, outta mind..." Wright grumbled.

The drop from the bridge to the level of the coolant varied—defined by the length of the journey, since some of it was lost as water vapour in the engine discharge. But the Sentry had only been out of dock for a few weeks, and little of the coolant had been lost so far. At the moment the drop was perhaps ten feet. Pharaoh watched the beams from her flashlight glitter on the surface, and reminded herself that the tanks kept dropping for another fifty-plus feet, and that if any of them accidentally fell into it they wouldn't be able to reach the rickety bridge again, leaving only one option: a long exhausting swim to the aft end of the tank—which still had to be a few hundred feet away—through a liquid that was more viscous than water, in a near-dark gloom to make it to the ladders on the other side.

"Put me in bug city with a blazer in hand rather than this shit." Wright grumbled, once again disdainfully eye-balling the tazer in his hand.

"You can't be serious." Said Pharaoh, shining her flashlight in his face. He swatted the air comically, as if her could somehow shoo the light out of his eyes. She lowered the beam, and rested her free hand on her hip, inadvertently reminding Wright and Krausman that she was a desirable, attractive sexual being, and not just the nut-busting, hard-nosed soldier she deliberately portrayed herself as.

"Hell, yeah, I'm serious! Bugs I know. Bugs don't bleed acid. But _these_ little bastards....!"

Just as Wright seemed to be gearing up for another mammoth griping session, the bridge clattered violently, accompanied by that unnerving loose rattling noise again. After she had regained her balance (and unaware that Wright and Krausman were doing the same) Pharaoh uttered: "Tell me that was one of you guys..."

Her first and only answer was a long, slow hiss from the darkness ahead of them.

"Oh, Shit..." Said Wright at no more than a whisper.

"Up front, Wright." Whispered Krausman.

"Fuck that shit!"

Without having either the time or the inclination to enter into a debate with Wright, Pharaoh hauled the tazer out of his hand and planted the flashlight in it instead. "Christ's sake, Wright... Grow some balls will you?" she added.

They crept forwards, Pharaoh leading, Wright following, shining the flashlight over her shoulder, Krausman bringing up the rear with nothing in his hands but a gas powered wrench he had found when they had entered the coolant maintenance substation at the start of their sweep.

"Goddamit! Keep the flashlight steady will you, Wright?" Pharaoh complained tensely.

"I can't help it; I'm shaking." He responded, before grasping the handle with both hands in an effort to get his nerves under control.

The bridge shuddered a little again. Up ahead, something glistened in the torchlight, but even for that brief moment, it was shapeless... formless. It hissed. Guttural. Primeval.

"That don't sound like no baby." remarked Wright.

They inched closer, their nerves stressed and ready to snap like a matchstick. Pharaoh held the tazer at arm's length, finger poised over the button...

Then Wright caught it in the beam of the flashlight: The dark skeletal creature squatted in a hunched position near the far end of the bridge. It seemed to regard them calmly with its long, smooth and—from what they could see—eyeless head. And Wright was correct in his earlier assessment: it was nothing like the newly hatched critter that had erupted from the body of a fellow trooper a few hours ago. Like Rain had said on the radio chatter earlier, it was bigger than a man. Its tail was long and segmented like the bare bones of its spine, and coiled around its body. It tapered to a slender dagger-like tip that was deliberately poised at them like a viper about to strike. Pharaoh imagined that one single swipe from it would eviscerate anyone unfortunate enough to stray too close. So, why, she wondered, were they still edging closer to the creature?

It lips parted into a sneer, revealing neat rows of savage teeth. Within its mouth, a tongue-like proboscis eased from its head, with its own rows of sharp incisors. It was as sure a warning as a diamondback rattling its tail...

The group hesitated for just a moment.

The alien lunged forwards in a screeching fury, hitting Pharaoh squarely in the chest and sending them both toppling over the safety rail and into the coolant below. Wright and Krausman were at the rail in a flash, desperately trying to locate Pharaoh on the beams of the flashlight. She erupted from the milky coolant, bleeding profusely from a wound in her head and gasping for air. The creature screeched in the dark behind her and she began to swim as hard as she could for the ladder, while Wright tried to stop Krausman from leaping into the coolant in a foolish and pointless rescue attempt. A moment later he had the horrifying realisation that the bridge was rattling with heavy footfalls headed straight for him and Krausman from behind. As he prepared to flee, Wright caught a glimpse of the alien in the coolant; it moved through the thick liquid using its tail with the ease of a crocodile, and was easily catching up to Pharaoh.

He and Krausman took to their heels, running from whatever was stampeding down the rickety bridge towards them. In the darkness behind them, a voice called out: "Guys! Wait!"

Wright turned, training the flashlight on the voice and felt relief wash over him when he saw Greene and Sands dashing towards them. His first reaction was to accuse Greene of chasing the thing up into the coolant tanks, but Krausman stopped everyone dead when he grabbed the flashlight from Wright's hands and pulled the sidearm from Greene's holster, before dashing into the down the bridge in pursuit of Pharaoh and the alien.

Left behind in the dark, Greene uttered: "What's he...?" before a split second later he took off in the same direction as Krausman, desperately shouting: "No! Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

Krausman shone the flashlight into the coolant below, catching the thing in the beams. He came to a halt and levelled the handgun at it, ignoring Greene's pleas not to shoot, and recalling the radio chatter earlier when Rain had said he had shot it and accomplished nothing. With no time to spare he found what looked like a soft spot at its neck and squeezed off five rounds in quick succession. The alien writhed and screeched and thrashed in the milky coolant. Its piss-yellow blood spurted from the wounds in its neck and the soft spots under the protective shell over the top of its head, mixing and diluting harmlessly into the coolant.

As Wright, Greene and Sands caught up with Krausman he took off again, headed for the end of the bridge, searching frantically for Pharaoh. He found her a few strokes short of the ladder, worn out and bleeding badly from a wound hidden under her thick, black hair somewhere. She paddled weakly to the ladder, and was helped up by Krausman. Sands, a trained field medic, immediately began searching through her hair, now thick and oily from the dip in the coolant, for the wound. Although Pharaoh seemed lucent and aware, despite her weariness, when Sands found the wound everyone remained silent and exchanged grim looks. "Is it bad?" she asked groggily.

"You can't feel it?" asked Krausman.

"It's gone. It's dead and sunk." remarked Greene, who had been watching the alien's death rattle before it sank into the depths of the coolant tank.

"...headache behind my eyes...." said Pharaoh in answer to Krausman's question.

Sands pushed the loose baseball-sized flap of Pharaoh's scalp back onto the patch of bare, bloody skull it had been ripped from. "She needs the med-bay—despite the risks." He said.

"Wait...." She murmured, now losing her battle with consciousness. Krausman gave her a nudge as her eyes flickered almost shut.

"Don't do that; Don't pass out, Soldier. Eyes peeled, remember?"

"Wait.." she murmured again. "I know… I know how we can defeat these things...."


	6. Chapter 6: Hammerstrike

Chapter 6: Hammerstrike

Kuze set in the space docking procedure and set course for return to re-dock with the _Sentry of Eons_ . Duty done, shift over, and looking forward to a hot meal, a hot shower and his warm bunk after a hectic twenty four hours piloting the dropship for assault, extraction and rescue missions. He spent all of a moment thinking about the rescue team and the science team he had inserted before making a b-line back for the home comforts (as it were) of the _Sentry _and some well earned R&R.

As the dropship was about to break atmo, the flak sensors started blinking and buzzing, and the detector console mounted on the interface above the viewport blinked on. It showed the dropship as a static mark at the top of the screen, at which three dotted lines lines, each tracing the trajectory of a broiling ball of bug plasma, were racing towards at supersonic speeds. The collision alarm blared shrilly, and Kuze killed the autodock and heaved the controls left, throwing the dropship into a left bank so hard he heard unstowed inventory tumble around in the rear and the chassis whine with the sudden stresses.

A searing ball of glowing blue plasma streaked by the viewport so close it left black scorch marks. He could smell burnt rubber, and hoped that the seals around the airlock and viewport weren't shot to hell.

The dropship shuddered in the rear so hard it rattled his teeth together, and he felt the aileron controls ratchet up to full tension before something gave out completely, and the controls in his hands became a useless piece of plastic.

The dropship rolled port and began pitching into a corkscrewing free fall. Kuze strapped himself into his seat securely, fighting against the G-forces that pulled his extremities around in all directions. He struggled to key his mike while simultaneously activating his tracking beacon. "Mayday! Mayday! This is Delta four; I have taken fire and am going down! Repeat: Dropship four has taken fire and is going down!"

Spinning mountaintops were rising to meet him fast, even as more balls of plasma arced into the sky to obliterate him. In a nauseating spin he could see a cluster of tanker bugs launching the deadly biological weapons into the sky as a bizarre form of naturally occurring flak One, two, three balls of superheated plasma seared by him in a flurry. A fourth smashed into the ship, ripping off the port wing and inadvertently steadying the spiralling plummet. "Somebody answer the goddamn distress call!" he yelled into the mike. "Where are you!"

The yoke in his hands was jammed fast and wouldn't move despite his best efforts, but fortuitously the dropship's fall had started rolling leewards and yawing a little to the left, drifting from the forbidding mountaintops towards a sea of green grass. On the northern horizon he could see the distant speck of the alien wreckage.

His time was up. He could punch out in heavily infested enemy territory, or crash and burn with the ship, and there was only seconds left for him to decide which way he was prepared to check out...

–

He had gained his command twelve years ago, working his way up through the ranks from a 16 year old nobody to the captain of one of the greatest flagships in the federation fleet: The _Sentry of Eons _During that time he had seen his fair share of treachery and double dealings within the military. He had led the federation armada against the former Sky Marshal Tatoupolis after his failed coup, and took his force to pieces at the infamous battle of Eris. He had crippled refugee frigates from the outlying systems on the orders of the federation, and partook in mankind's wilful attempt at the complete extermination of the Arachnid species without question. In his time he had been responsible for many human deaths. Most were enemies for sure, but he had lost many of his own men under his command, and (as there always had been and always would be in the past and future of conflict) he was sure many innocents had suffered and died because of his actions.

But those appalling facts that only a tyrant could be proud of were tempered by one personal belief that he clung onto steadfastly: that what he was doing was for the greater good; that in the scope of the 'bigger picture' some sacrifices had to be made. Eggs in an omelette.

That all changed the moment he read the private communiqué. It had come through shortly after the troopers that had been attacked by the 'huggers' were examined. The medics, in good faith and adhering to the strict infection and quarantine protocols, had made their reports and transmitted it to the relays for forwarding to Earth; the private for-your-eyes-only response for the_ Sentry's_ Captain had arrived barely eight hours later—such a swift response over an issue only considered NEGLIGABLE (as it was at the time of transmission; it had now crossed the threshold in SEVERE and then some...) by the federation's protocols seemed exceedingly unusual, though by no means unprecedented. While the speed of the reply had given the Captain some pause for thought, the actual message itself was downright suspicious:

_BIO-SCANS RECIEVED|_

_ALIEN SPECIES OF IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC VALUE|_

_AFFECTED PERSON(S) TO BE PLACED IN HIBERNATION|_

_SAFE DELIVERY OF SPECIMEN PRIORITY ONE|_

_ALL OTHER PRIORITES SECONDARY|_

_SHIP REMOTELY COMMANDEERED BY X.O.C.I.C-COMMAND#1914164|_

_ALL HOLDS, HATCHES AND AIRLOCKS SECURED|_

_NO PERSONEL TO LEAVE SHIP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE|_

_X.O. COMMAND OVERRIDE SUSPENDED|_

_ASSUME GUARDIAN CONTROL UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE|_

_CHARTING COURSE TO EARTH...|_

_COURSE CHARTED|_

_EXECUTE._

_BY ORDER OF A.M.C.I.C FEDERICO SONNE_

The captain's chest tightened with a darkening sense of betrayal at the thought of GUARDIAN and, by default, as its sole interfacing crewman, Eben, being in total control of his ship. The name at the bottom of the communiqué only drove the betrayal deeper, like a splinter into the skin; Air Marshal Sonne was a good friend of his since their academy days together, and knew all too well who commanded the _Sentry of Eons. _What had they brought aboard with them in that alien species that was of such value that would make his good friend of over thirty years stick the knife in now? Why was his ship being remotely commanded by the bureaucracy back on Earth with no appeal, stranding Field Marshal Rico and his squad on the planet below?

And the hardest question remained for him and him alone: Just what was he prepared to do about it?

–

The air hung thick with the smell of smoke and something else that was powerful and undefinable to everyone on the science team.

Margot had earlier ordered the dropship down on the far side of the wreck, leaving the strange light anomaly at a safe working distance for the moment.

She paired Gibbons off with Fran, and together they began a sweep around the area of the wreckage, taking base readings before they would rejoin Margot and the others exploring the interior of the wreck. Margot, Colm and Shigeru were already making preliminary sweeps of the hull, and more than once Margot found herself rolling her eyes as Colm and Shigeru conversed excitedly about one thing or another. In truth she was just as excited, but felt like she didn't have anyone to share that excitement with.

The wreck itself was in bad shape, with only the aft section remaining structurally intact. They hadn't come across any bodies yet, but after reading Field Marshal Rico's debrief earlier, she had an idea of what to expect. Everyone on the team had stepped off the dropship packing weapons, and for the moment, on this strange world under strange circumstances, she ordered her team to fire on anything that moved which wasn't in federation colours.

"This is incredible!" remarked Colm as he lifted a large snapped and twisted strut that barred the way. He marvelled at the five inch thick piece of metal in his hands, and balanced it effortlessly on his right index finger. "Look at that! Almost no weight... but-" he swung the strut at a rumpled section of hull, making a great clang like the striking of some colossal bell. "Strong as titanium... Stronger probably."

Shigeru peered through a massive breech in the hull, into the dark interior of the alien ship. "I hope you didn't wake anything."

"Don't worry about it." Colm said, a cocksure grin and patting the grip of the blazer slung across his back.

Margot dialled Fran's freq into her comm and keyed the mike. "Fran, you get those base readings done yet?

"Only the northern sector; but we're downwind so the readings on the other side should be okay other than the anomaly—no comment on that yet. "

"Good. Check the anomaly. Then get back to us—we're going in. "

–

Fran confirmed the order and gave Gibbons an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "We got the anomaly" She said, smiling.

Gibbons was wary, more looking around him for potential threats than scientific curiosity. "Great..." He murmured half-heartedly.

"Just keep your eyes peeled for trouble, huh?"

Still looking around him, and never actually facing Fran at any time, He replied distractedly "Yeah... I will..."

She smiled, amused by his vigilance and reticence. The spectroscopy device in her hands registered the wreckage in sharp orange hues against a black background, but just occasionally, when it could pick up the mysterious anomaly at the south-eastern tip of the wreckage, it would display that mystifying white blob they had first witnessed from the air. It would become sharper as the got closer, but for now, Fran still guessed it was some piece of ejecta from the crash...

For now, Gibbons nerves buried any excitement he had felt when he proposed the possibility of witnessing a zero-point drive, and being on a bug infested world which was apparently being invaded by other alien species did little for his fraying nerves—he was a scientist first; a soldier a very distant second in his mind. Moreover, he was a formulator of theories who worked in controlled circumstances—field work just wasn't his gig. Not by a long shot. "Still can't see your anomaly?" he half asked-half whined.

They picked a path through the sea of wreckage, Fran keeping her eyes on the device in her hands, Gibbons keeping his eyes on whatever spooked him from one moment to the next. They rounded the fore section of the ship, which had suffered worst in the crash. Whatever it looked like before was impossible to tell from the scorched and twisted metal.

Gibbons shaded his eyes from the sun as he peered to the south and pointed "Smoke on the horizon." he noted. Fran approached and could see the distant tower of black-grey smoke rising into the sky where he pointed.

"What can that be?" she asked, perplexed. "I didn't get a fix on that from the sky; I would've picked up the heat signature no problem."

"More wreckage? Something that combusted post-impact? Maybe broke off high in the atmosphere and fell on a different trajectory?" Colm theorised, letting his mind do what came naturally to him, instead of fretting as he had been.

"I think that's a lot of conjecture for a little smoke." She remarked dryly. "We can check it out later. Let's keep moving."

Dutifully returning to recording the data from the wreck, Fran eventually turned her device to the anomaly when they got within approximately a hundred yards of it. The rads never jumped above the base readings, and so nothing had piqued her curiosity for more than a few moments on the way, but now the image on-screen held her attention completely. Now, so close to the anomaly, its unexpected shape showed up on the device with unnerving clarity.

She let the device drop to her sides and began looking around nervously. Gibbons, already wired, noticed and felt his guts knot. "What is it?"

Fran looked in the direction of the anomaly, although Gibbons could see nothing there until she aimed the device at it. On-screen was the distinctive shape of a smaller alien craft, only about the distance of a football field away, yet somehow completely invisible to the naked eye. "Oh, God..." Whispered Fran, ducking behind a seared and twisted chunk of hull. "There's more.."

Her eyes fell on Gibbons, truthful and afraid, making Gibbons almost lose his nerve completely. He dropped to the ground and crawled into cover beside her. "There's more of them..." She uttered, "...and they're here..."

–

Margot led the team into a massive breach in the hull, that would allow them access at least three decks within the wreckage. The walls of the interior were dark, almost black, and embellished here and there with the regular illuminated plaques bearing the Hunters' language. Whether the writings served practical or decorative purposes, she couldn't tell, since both states seem to blur together within the craft.

The musky aroma mixed with the smell of smoke made a fetid, oily coating that seemed to burn the eyes and nose and throat, and Colm wretched slightly as they proceeded deeper within, looking to his colleagues self-consciously. "Sorry. Choked a little."

All of them were subjected to what they felt were phantom odours of cooking meat, the smell of a lingering for a single breath, so that each member couldn't be sure it wasn't their imagination.

Apprehensive, not afraid, was how Margot would have described how her condition as her team made their way along the skewed floor of the twisted passageway within the alien ship. So when a radio buzzed with static, and she physically started and cried out in fright, she was as surprised as the rest of her team. Her hand leapt to her ear, in readiness for a response, but the only sounds through the hiss of static were gibberish that she couldn't make out.

"That Fran?" asked Colm in a curious whisper, touching a small device to struts here in there and taking metallurgical readings.

"Most likely..." Margot replied, also in whisper "...but the channel's fried"

"It's this compound—whatever it is. It's very dense...absorbs lots of wavelengths." Said Shigeru loud enough for his voice to echo down the passageway, then seemed to reverberate throughout the entire craft moments later.

Colm laughed quietly in spite of himself.

"What's so funny?" asked Shigeru now at a whisper

"Jeez, man, a little quiet? That was like fart a crypt!" Colm noted, drawing snickers from his colleagues.

The mood was broken immediately by a strange scuffling sound far ahead that, like Shigeru's voice moments earlier, seemed to reverberate throughout the entire ship. Margot pulled her side arm and flicked off the safety "Weapons free guys; something in here with us is still alive."

As Colm and Shigeru stowed their instruments and pulled their Blazers to bear, the whole dark maze of the ship seemed to come alive with hateful hisses. In the darkness behind Margot an exoskeletal tail uncoiled slowly from above, unseen by the others. It's dagger-like tip levelled at Margot's upper spine, right between her shoulder blades...

"What are we looking for?" Asked Colm quietly.

"Anything that moves..." answered Margot. At the very same moment that jagged, hidden tail lanced forwards. The tip glanced off her spine and, in an explosion of gore, drove completely through her rib cage. Her scream of anguish and pain quickly became a wet gurgle as the tail that had impaled her lifted her clear off the floor with ease. Colm and Shigeru spun to face Margot, frantically seeking whatever had attacked. In the gloom all they could see was Margot being brought to bear at the sneering grimace of a very well hidden creature.

"Silberman!" cried Colm, as he peered down the sights of his blazer, praying for a clear shot. The creature screeched and Colm watched as Margot's throat was ripped out so forcefully that her head was almost completely severed. Something warm and wet rained down on Colm and Shigeru, and time seemed to slow as they watched Margot's mutilated corpse being tossed aside by the hidden creature in the ceiling. It turned to face them, and its lips drew back from its teeth into a mocking, deadly grimace. Again it hissed...

Colm squeezed trigger of his blazer, followed a moment later by Shigeru. The guns erupted to life with bright, blazing light from the muzzle flash and tremendous noise within the confines of the wreck that magnified every little sound. The bullets ripped into the ceiling of the passageway, many sparking is they ricocheted off the durable metal... a moment later, something hung limp from the ceiling.

Only when their magazines clicked dry did they cease firing, although both slammed in another clip and chambered the first round in readiness in less time than it took for them to fully draw breath again.

With their ears ringing and their corneas still haunted by the phantoms of hundreds of muzzle flashes, they stalked forwards towards Margot's corpse.

"I think we got it..." whispered Shigeru, prodding the limp form that hung from above with his gun barrel, "yeah, I think we got it."

Colm inched nearer, keeping his sights on it. "I can't make it out; my vision shot to hell".

Slowly, Shigeru reached out with his hand and groped at it. "Shit..." He uttered "It's just some kind of tubing! We missed! We missed it!" he finished. Pulling the stock of his blazer back into his shoulder and peering down the sights in all directions.

"I can't see shit!" Barked Colm as he checked the hosing that dangled from above for himself. "Toss the marker flares."

"You do that, you're gonna advertise our presence."

"You want to end up on the damn menu, too? We're bugging out, and I want to see what the hell is going on!"

In that moment the ship came alive with distinct hissing and screeching- scuttling nightmare sounds that were converging on them from every direction.

"Here we go, light 'em up!" Ordered Colm, pulling all five of his marker flares from the leg pocket of his pants. In one smooth and well practised motion he smashed the tips of the flares against the handle of his blazer, knocking the airtight caps off. The air reacted with the phosphorus within, producing an intense white glow that would keep burning for an hour or more. Colm threw them one at a time, further and further each time so that he created an illuminated stretch of passageway, and told Shigeru to do the same.

They knelt, back to back, looking for the slightest sign of movement.

The whole craft suddenly echoed with a ferocious bellow, and the clattering and clashing sounds of a violent struggle.

"Somewhere above us." Remarked Shigeru tensely.

"We have got to get out of here." Colm growled, finding the steel in him that he thought he left behind in basic training.

The sound of a weapon blast echoed through the ship, and the already familiar screech of the creatures that killed Margot drew closer... closer.

"Contact!" stated Shigeru as at least four of the sneering alien monsters scrambled into the light. Shigeru squeezed the trigger, ripping them into pulp in seconds while they were more than twenty feet away.

Colm, too, saw something moving just beyond the light of the flares. The moment that Shigeru had opened fire, the others had charged at him trying to flank them. The leading alien creature charged straight ahead directly, while the others, showing extraordinary intelligence, split left and right, scrambling along the walls of the passageway, forcing him to pick his targets carefully. With short bursts he took down the lead alien, before fixing his sights on the one to the left, letting his barrel lead it slightly. The bullets punched clear through its smooth cranium and down the length of its spine. It fell to the floor squirming and screeching, but not for long. The last of alien creatures pounced with feline agility from the wall to the floor, and forwards again at Colm himself. Its inner jaws snapped time and again just centimetres from his face as he wrestled with the impossibly strong creature. It's breath was warm and wet and smelled like rotting meat...

Shigeru's gun clicked dry as he brought down two more of the creatures that charged at him from his side, and upon seeing Colm pinned by the alien, he reacted with blind, thoughtless instinct and charged. His shoulder barge connected with alien's right side sending it and Shigeru himself sprawling. Shigeru let himself follow through into a roll, and was on his knees pulling a fresh clip before the creature, or even Colm had time to get up.

A half-dozen percussive blasts suddenly sounded from an upper-level in quick succession, drawing the creature's attention for just a moment, as if it sensed whatever was above. Shigeru slapped in the fresh clip, chambered the first round and pumped the distracted alien full of hot explosive-tipped lead, just as Colm was getting to his feet.

"Son of a bitch tried to rip me limb from limb..." Colm grumbled softly, vacantly.

Shigeru had no words when he saw the deep gash in Colm's leg spurting thick gouts of blood which looked like black and tarry in the light of flares. Colm wobbled on his feet and sagged to his knees, drawing his fingers over the dark blood that had soaked through the material of his fatigues; His femoral artery had been severed in the brief struggle. "I'm hurt..." he mumbled, before toppling aside. Shigeru was beside him in moments, trying to take care of his friend and stay sharp at the same time.

"You... stop the bleeding, man..." slurred Colm. His eyes distant and unfocused, "Keep pressure on it."

The continuing cacophony of violence from above came crashing into stark reality when a weakened section of the ceiling first groaned metallically, then caved in completely. Two terrifying creatures locked in a desperate fight to the death crashed to the floor just feet away from Shigeru and Colm.

For the briefest moment Shigeru was transfixed by the mortal enemies as they savagely tore at each other. The lithe alien creature, like the ones that had just attacked, clawed at the other—a tall savage humanoid, which Shigeru knew from the last debrief to be what the grunts had nicknamed a hunter. The blow connected with the masked hunter, and a splatter of thick and warm luminous-green blood freckled Shigeru's face and pulled him back into the moment. He grabbed Colm's collar and began dragging him to safety, leaving a thick black trail of his friend's blood in their wake.

The hunter and alien continued to struggle together, with the advantage seemingly swapping hands from one moment to the next. Wrestled to the ground by the ferocious alien, the hunter managed to curl its legs into its body, despite alien's unrelenting attack and, at the crucial moment, when the alien shifted its body weight in the right direction, the hunter thrust its legs out with all its strength. The alien clattered against the opposite passageway wall and rose quickly, snarling with rage.

The hunter, bleeding and unarmed, glanced around its surroundings at the snapped and twisted steel within the section of the ship...

The alien charged, hissing and snarling, talons primed to rake flesh from bone. The hunter squatted a little in an unmistakable battle stance and growled, but held its ground, waiting...

The alien creature lunged at the hunter, which used its impetus to lift the alien clean from the ground. The hunter twisted hard and threw the creature expertly onto a jagged spike of metal that had sheared cleanly from a support strut, hooking it upwards through its bottom jaw. Hung like a stuck pig, the livid creature thrashed wildly and screeched in rage. The metal of the hook pitted and smoked as the alien's acid blood streamed down it, but it held strong, highly resistant to the acid's corrosive effects.

Shigeru, trembling and feeling the strength begin to leave his legs, desperately dragged Colm into the darkness beyond the light of the flares, praying that no more of the alien creatures would attack out of the darkness, before he tried to use the strap from Colm's gun as an improvised tourniquet.

"Dad, Prince has been digging in the garden again..." slurred Colm quietly, only groaning weakly when Shigeru pulled the tourniquet tight.

Hidden in the dark, knowing that Colm would surely going to die despite his best efforts to stem his massive blood loss, Shigeru watched the hunter as it approached the alien that writhed like a worm on a hook. The hunter cocked its head sideways in a curious gesture as it looked at it's enemy, despite the alien's thrashing tail coming within centimetres of eviscerating him, though it was smart enough to wait for the right timing before it lunged forward and seized the alien's tail. Struggling with it, as if it were wrestling an anaconda, the hunter eventually manoeuvred itself into the right position, before heaving at the creatures legs with all its strength and weight, simultaneously driving the tip of the ragged hook completely through the top of the alien's head and severing its spine at the same time.

Hurt and obviously weary, the hunter's entire body tensed, every fibre of its muscles hard and forbidding beneath its thick mottled skin. It roared at its dead enemy, full of triumphant rage, before it turned and faced down the dark passageway. Somehow, impossibly, it faced Shigeru directly-even though he had deliberately hidden with Colm in the darkest corner he could find, somehow it could see them there. The hunter remained still, but made a distinctive trilling sound that sounded part growl-part purr. It didn't seem threatening to Shigeru, but at the same time it didn't seem all together benevolent. Then it's body language changed, the lowering of his head and a slight tensing of the muscles in its shoulders and legs-A stance of ill intent if ever Shigeru had seen one. He lifted his blazer, taking aim, when a distant chorus of alien shrieks echoed from the darkness. It turned, apparently caught in a moment of indecision, between Shigeru and Colm, or the hidden aliens. It turned to Shigeru again, and in that moment it faded from sight into a shimmering phantom. The invisible eyes of the hunter's mask flashed once as if in warning before they too faded. Shigeru could only make out a vague outline of the hunter caused by the way the light became distorted when it moved, and when it headed towards the alien shrieks in the darkness behind it, leaving a only a trail of luminous green blood in its wake, Shigeru let out a long breath that he had been holding for what seemed like forever.

The Blazer trembled in his hands, and only now did the deep black panic he had been feeling really get a grip. He was amazed however that he had kept it together so well, considering just how bad things had got, and how soon it had went south too. Though had never willed anyone dead in his life, a small vindictive slice of him felt an exalted sense of vindication at what he'd always thought was a hasty and risky plan, and Margot had paid for her bullish dismissal of his worries with her life. But by the looks of it, so would Colm. Although Shigeru couldn't see his friend, he could feel how cold and clammy his skin was, and the small shallow breaths he seemed to take less and less often. Before long he could hear the monsters-the serpent-like ones that reminded him of the old kaiju movies he had loved when he was a kid-screeching in the gloom, and the blood chilling roar of the Hunter.

Margot's broken body lay slumped against the far wall, bathed in flare light. She looked like a forgotten marionette, the way her limbs were splayed unnaturally, that empty thousand-yard stare... It may have been an amusing sight had it not been so horrific.

All the tension in Colm's body waned away, his last breath was a long and slow exhalation that could've come from a sleeping man, it was so peaceful.

An immediate rage filled Shigeru, blacker than any he had ever known, so he instantly knew the futility of allowing it to consume him; there was nobody left to blame but himself. He couldn't help but play the scenario through in his head again and again, and wonder what he could have done differently, and he felt the brief childlike desperation that if he willed it strongly enough, he could change what happened. But the moment passed fleetingly, a pathetic juvenile fantasy. It was time for a reality check: He had to escape .

He pulled a dog tag from a chain around Colm's neck, before crossing to Margot's body to do the same. Hers was caught in the gaping wound that was all that was left of her neck, and Shigeru had to pull them from a small lump of coagulated blood, before wiping them clean on her fatigues. Her radio suddenly flared with static, which gave Shigeru such a fright that he stumbled back a few feet, fumbling for the trigger of his blazer. The static hiss turned into a shrill squeal of feedback, and just for a moment he thought he heard Fran's heavily distorted voice.

Fran!

Shigeru pulled the small radio unit from the chest pocket of Margot's combat vest (little good it did her) and plucked the earpiece from her ear. He keyed the mike as he slipped the receiver into his ear.

"Fran, Gibbons... God.., please... If any of you can hear this, get to cover and stay there. I'm coming for you. We are in deep trouble."

The sun had reached its zenith in the sky, beating down hard and bright. Not that it was the heat that Rico and his squad minded; it was a damn humidity. Where the air didn't shimmer with heat haze, small wisps of steam rose from the mulch. The planet's indigenous insects bit and buzzed persistently, becoming a real nuisance very quickly, and though the situation seemed to be persistently sliding downhill, Master Chief couldn't help but feel a little amused as passing troopers cursed and swatted the air, all sweating heavily and just starting to breathe hard. Such were the perks of being encased within the Mjolnir armour he wore which tracked his body temperature and compensated accordingly.

At Rico's order they had continued East, planning on getting to high ground to overcome the communication blackout they had guessed was caused by the metal rich mountains themselves, which they begin ascending barely an hour ago.

Rico had wanted to head for the valley he knew lay in the north-east initially-the very same one that first squad had been taken apart in just thirty hours ago. But it could mean a half day detour without Comms, and since watching the macabre alien birthing spectacle in the basin behind them, it seemed imperative that he tried to establish contact with the Sentry, or the dropship... Anything.

The stranger was a capable and fearless warrior, but his story only deepened the mystery of the planet. Only three of Rico's questions had been answered (though he taken a tremendous amount on faith; but there was just no way the Master Chief could know what he knew otherwise) but the doors had been kicked in to a thousand more.

Rico, feeling the burn in his calves and chest ordered a five minute rest, with the lookouts watching the rear and the two freshest looking troopers sent ahead as scouts. He hobbled to a small lichen covered outcropping and took a seat, squinting against the sunlight. Dalray headed up the trail from behind and upon seeing Rico taking a breather decided to join him.

"Anything?" Rico puffed.

"Woods has been trying every ten minutes. We still can't get a thing."

Rico wrestled the boot off his left foot and emptied out a few grains of gravel he had picked up on the trail. "Okay. Keep at it."

Master Chief, although not choosing to sit, had remained beside Rico as ordered. Other than answering the questions they were willing to, both had not engaged in anything close to an actual conversation; small talk wasn't their business. So when Master Chief slung his rifle over his shoulder and observed the land around, speaking with a fondness and a tinge of nostalgia, Rico was surprised beyond words for a moment.

"I grew up on a world just like this." Said the Warrior as he gazed westwards over the green sea of trees "Not that we saw outside of the compound gates much in our younger years." He added, before continuing: "Dr. Halsey would let us sit in the sun if we did well in tactics class, or weapons training... even treat us to candy if the dietitians approved..."

Rico didn't know what to say. Master Chief's upbringing seemed oppressive to him; a criminal act that robbed him and many children like him of their childhood and innocence. The fact that the warrior speaking so fondly about his past from a time yet to come made the mind twist a little...

Rico looked around, for once letting himself see the world for what it was through the eyes of a man and not a soldier, without careful consideration of terrain or tactics. To the west, a sea of lush green jungle, ringed into the basin by distant, hazy mountains; To the north where the steep sides of the eastern range segued into a promontory overlooking a large lake, fed from the highest waterfall Rico had ever seen. The churning whitewater looked almost like milk from his vantage point, at least five miles south of the cliffs over which the waterfall spilled. Further northeast of the waterfall, Rico could clearly see where the tree line ended, high upon the largest of the mountains around. Even on this bright hot and humid day the peak of the distant mountain was hidden under a cap of rolling cloud that must have swept in from some far-off northern sea. "It really is quite a beautiful place, this..." He said in spite of himself. "I just hope they do something worthwhile with it."

"Sir!" Called Ryker from uphill, carefully plodding back downhill toward the rest of the squad without tripping over a tree root or a boulder; any stumble down the steep incline was liable to end in broken bones. "Sir, there's something up here you should see."

Rico, the Chief and Dalray followed the scout back up the route he had taken, where the trees clustered together more densely. All around were dead and dry thickets of thorns, which immediately struck as odd to all, since the thorns only grew in areas of direct sunlight, of which precious little filtered through the canopy above .

Past the thickets, the group came upon a makeshift defensive stockade of sharpened stakes and smaller punji sticks, clustered so closely they looked like the hide of some giant porcupine.

"Man-made" observed Rico, thumbing the point of a weather beaten stake.

"Very retro" said Dalray dryly.

"Desperation..." Rico shrugged.

"Survival." Added Master Chief, and gestured to the carcass of an Arachnid covered so thickly with a variety of different molds and fungi that no one else has noticed it. Rico approached it and nudged it with the toe of his boot, and the empty exoskeleton tumbled over, the flesh within long since rotted into the soil. "Whatever happened here, we've missed it by while."

"You think it's our rebel camp, Sir?" Asked Dalray.

"I think it's the rebel camp, all right."Answered Rico. "Is there a way in?"

Ryker nodded. "At the west side. Looks like somebody set off an explosive there; a landslide scoured away the northwest end of the palisade. But it's tricky to get to."

Rico pursed his lips and blew out a long somber sigh. Master Chief's inscrutable visor faced him, yet somehow he sensed the warrior's desire to search the camp. Perhaps it was his body language... Or perhaps it was just Rico's imagination. More questions were raised, but he thought they had all the answers they needed as far as the rebels were concerned.

Ryker held up a tarnished bullet casing. "There's a trail to the northeast, littered with these."

Rico took the casing and inspected it. The bullet was spent, and the casing half filled with mulch. At the rear of the casing was the square dent of a firing pin that Rico immediately recognized. "Lance five-five-six millimetre; these guys couldn't have lasted long if that was the kind of weapons they brought with them. The lances never did like the humidity and were liable to jam up and blow your hand off . Or your face if you were real unlucky."

He handed the casing back to Ryker, who, not really knowing what to do with it, pocketed it. "What kind of shape is the trail in?"

"It's overgrown some since..." He gestured at the dead and moldering arachnid. "But it's good enough. We'll have to go around the eastern side though; the north is too tricky."

"It'll do." Said Rico, already starting off. "As long as we get to goddamn higher ground."

The others followed, rounding the abandoned camp on the banks that hemmed in its north-eastern edge. From their height above it they could look directly into the camp, and could pick out a few rusting supply crates here, an arachnid corpse there... a shelter made out of thin steel panels-most likely poached from the rebels' own ship-wooden logs, and old tarpaulins all collapsed into a heap. The rebels, it seemed, hadn't survived here for very long at all.

Azumi felt a slight shudder of dread, and a surprising touch of sympathy as she thought about the fate of the rebels. This world must have seemed like a Garden of Eden before the bug got a foothold here, and they were bound to have known any small-scale resistance was pointless once they did. Bound to have known their doom; when the bug came you hit back with everything you had or you got out as soon as possible. The rebels had made their own choice and cut their own throats in the process-the poached ship parts that made up the collapse shanty within the camp was proof of that. The goddamn rebels were so stubborn, so adamant they would not be moved that they had taken their own ship to pieces. It would have been a symbolic gesture to them she guessed-nobody in their right mind would purposefully maroon themselves. They must have expected others to join them, or for a periodical supply drop... some means to get off planet when the occasion arose-after all, it was only bug remains they had seen so far, not human. The only thing they really knew was that some time ago, a few bugs had attacked, and that the rebel camp (if that was indeed what was) had been abandoned. Everything else was speculation. Perhaps they had gotten off planet. Perhaps they were sipping cocktails on some sunny golden shore worlds away. Or perhaps their bones were crumbling alongside the arachnid within the camp. Without getting in there and seeing for themselves it would be impossible to be sure.

Worryingly, she sensed the same air of inevitability concerning the fate of the rebels as she had been feeling for herself and her fellow troopers since before they had landed on this shitty planet, before the acid bleeding parasitic aliens and seven foot tall hi-tech-slash-old-school hunter beings from another world. She swatted at the air as a particularly tenacious insect buzzed in her ear time and again, cursing, perhaps irrationally, every living creature on the damn planet. Thankfully, after more than an hour of hard slogging, the steep embankment eventually levelled out onto a plateau, where the trees thinned out just a touch.

As she and Poledouris walked side by side, he tugged at his collar and breathed a weary sigh, grumbling about the heat and the humidity. Van Buren (Oddball, as the rest of the squad called him) suddenly pushed between them so that they walked three abreast like old friends having a chat. "You know …." he said, wiggling an accusing finger at the armoured warrior at the head of the column, "the new testament said that Satan fell from heaven in a lightning storm and made the earth tremble..."

"Is that right?" asked Poledouris, uninterested.

"Yeah." Said Van Buren, before briskly walking on, and apparently making the same remark to the next pair of marching troopers ahead. Azumi shook her head in bemusement, while Poledouris blew another long, exasperated sigh from between his teeth.

"That guy ain't right." he remarked

The distant thunder of the waterfall was audible now, and even from their distance of eight or nine miles they could see small rainbows of reflected light form in the water vapor at the base of the waterfall, and rocky outcroppings rudely punched through the cascading whitewater. Up ahead the Chief stopped at the cliff edge and peered at the distant waterfall.

"You okay?" Asked Rico after the Spartan suddenly split away from the squad and wandered off. As he approached the Chief he made a gesture to Dalray to try and contact the Sentry or the dropship .

The Warrior stood at the edge of the sheer drop looking northward. "We don't have time for sightseeing." remarked Rico.

"What world is this?" Asked the Chief.

"It doesn't have a name yet; just a designation."

That was a long pause where neither said anything. Master Chief just observed the lay of the land to the north wordlessly. Rico's eyes watched the Spartan, now knowing he was hiding something. "Why do you ask?" He said after more than a minute of silence.

"Déjà vu." Said the Chief. Suddenly his head took on a slight tilt of curiosity. He briskly pointed out the forest at the peak of the waterfall and said: "The north bank tree line by the waterfall's edge... what do you see?"

Rico's sidelong glance of mistrust was overt, and intended to be so. Though he prided himself on being a man who spoke his mind, now didn't seem to be a good time to delve into the mystery and intrigue of the Spartan again. Frustratingly, he realized, that seemed to be the way with the armor clad warrior. Acquiescing, Rico popped the stud on the webbing pouch at his right hip and pulled out a small pair of field binoculars. He peered through them to the north, tracing his way back to the waterfall from further upstream. The sun glimmered through the tree limbs and sparkled off small pockets of water near the whitewater torrent that plummeted over the cliff. The whole area looked like raw, unrestrained nature at its best, reminding him of when his parents had taken him to the Amazon national Park as a child. But the warrior was right; something caught his eye, jarring his sight with such an unexpected contrast that Rico pulled the binoculars away from his eyes as if they deceived him, before looking through them again. Against the many hues of greens and browns, something stark and scarlet caught the eye like a light in the darkness. "I hope that isn't what I think it is." He said. Shock and outrage pulled the timbre of his voice into a near growl.

Dalray approached, tipping back his helmet and mopping the sweat from his brow. Wordlessly, Rico handed him the binoculars and told him where to look. After a few moments, when the muscles around Dalray's jaw set hard with obvious anger, Master chief and Rico knew he had spotted it. "Tell me they're not ours." He said.

The three men stood at the cliff edge while the small squad trudged past, occasionally glancing northward in curiosity at what had their leaders' attention. The three men, who had all seen their fellow man in various states of dismemberment, both dead and alive, stood enraged atop the mountainous plateau at the sight of six skinless human corpses trussed up by their heels and left dangling from the limbs of trees by the river's edge. "Hung 'em up like sides of beef." Dalray remarked, angrily shaking his head in disbelief at such apparent barbarism."That's no way for a soldier to die."

"We don't know who they are yet." Said Rico.

"It's no way for anybody to die." Retorted the Spartan. He could see that Dalray clearly agreed.

Rico turned away, shaking his head in disgust before looking to Dalray "The Sentry. Any luck?"

Dalray nodded. "We're getting their beacon, but nobody's answering our calls."

Master Chief watched as Rico physically sagged a little, and knew that Field Marshal blamed himself for whatever ill fate had befallen the ship, it's crew and his men. It was a wearisome, defeatist look that somehow the seemed ill fitting on Rico's weathered face. "And the dropship?"

Dalray just shook his head. It said everything.

Rico, clearly becoming exasperated, screwed his eyes tightly shut and rubbed his temples. He took a deep breath that wasn't quite a sigh, but was heavy with reflection. After a moment he turned to face the distant river bank again and said: "We have to know who they are."

Dalray nodded, business like and ready to prepare the troops, but Rico had other plans.

Poledouris and Azumi brought up the rear of the squad, and as they ambled by they caught Rico's eye. "Hey... Shoulders!" He shouted. Although Poledouris was no more clued into Rico's nickname for him than any of the others it was enough to catch his attention. When he turned Rico beckoned for him.

"Poledouris, sir" Dalray added quietly.

Poledouris trotted over, followed by Azumi, who decided to follow regardless of the fact that the invite was for one. Not that it mattered; it saved Rico from picking someone else. "You two, the Chief and I are taking a little detour." He said to Poledouris and Azumi, then addressed Dalray: "Lieutenant, take everyone else and keep heading northeast. Get to the other side of these goddamn mountains. Keep trying the Sentry's freq and see if you can't raise the dropship... sync up your transponder so I can tail you. You've got my freq in case you need to contact me."

Rico was already heading towards the rocky escarpment that led to a tricky looking climb to the promontory near the waterfall by the time he had finished giving his orders. Dalray clearly wanted to be going down with them, but both knew that wasn't wise. "I'll see you on the other side, Sir." Said Dalray as he trotted to catch up with the rest of the squad.

To Rico, Dalray's parting statement had two connotations-one seemed startlingly optimistic, the other, dreadfully realistic, if you believed in that kind of thing...

To begin with nobody had really put much stock in Rain's assessment that the aliens were afraid of fire, but they were out of options; there were too many lives at stake, both on the ship, and on the planet below.

Pharaoh's plan called for one of two things: bait, to lure the aliens into the trap that would be set for them OR some method to drive them into it. Since nobody was willing to be the worm on that particular hook, using fire was now the most appealing option, even if it did appal the Sentry's captain.

"I don't mean to rain on your parade, but we're fresh out of flamethrowers, man." Said Sands. The huddle of troopers gathered in the makeshift medbay within navigation began squabbling among each other with their own ideas for a plan B. Pharaoh, propped up against a console with her head wrapped in bandages and half delirious with the painkillers they had pumped into her system rolled her eyes up to the captain.

"Is there nothing we could use?"

The captain stood alone and aloof, arms across his chest in a combative gesture, but said nothing.

"This is your goddamn ship we're fighting and dying on, Captain. Now is not the time for reticence." Said Troutman.

"It was your people who brought the damn things aboard the Sentry, Lieutenant. And my people are suffering too!" The Captain remarked angrily.

"We've got enough enemies on the boat..." Implored Jonze, "Let's not make more between us!" Though he was covered in the blood of the wounded and the dead (the damn Aliens had chalked up fifteen kills to the Sentry's solitary one—like the arachnid, few survivors were left after an encounter), and hadn't slept for over thirty hours now, Jonze seemed to be one of the few people aboard the Sentry keeping their head.

"Uh... excuse me...?" asked one of the Sentry's crewmen sheepishly. When everyone turned to face him, the comm-tech seemed to shrink back into himself. Although physically healthy, he always looked wan and tired, with heavy bluish bags under his eyes. Middle age spread had given him a paunch around his gut, and his greying hair had begun receding rapidly, making him look at least a decade older than his forty-one years.

"Davitch?" asked the Captain. The cynical look in his eyes remained even as he addressed one of his own.

Davitch's face flushed red, and his chest began heaving heavier with deep nervous breaths. The quiet, unremarkable man was not used to having an audience hanging onto his every word. "What I...I mean... I think..."

"Spit it out, man!" Demanded the Captain.

"Yessir... b...but … I'm... I mean ….don't we have a consignment of m...mothballed mark fours in c..cargo one...?"

The Captain took a moment to think, before the penny dropped. A brief moment of hope behind his eyes flared and died away just as quickly. "Cargo one is on the bottom deck." He remarked wearily, "It would be a fight all the way."

"What are you talking about? Mark four what?" asked Pharaoh, trying to peer past Jonze who was examining her again for the umpteenth time.

Troutman allowed himself a smirk as he looked to Pharaoh, buoyed up with a sudden look of optimism. "Battle units from the old Marauder programme. Decommissioned on the orders of Field Marshal Rico and the E-MIT council.

Sands was immediately rising to his feet at the news. "Alright!" He exclaimed, "Those things were armed to the teeth!"

"Including flame units!" added another of the Sentry's crew. He was rakish and young enough not to look as jaded as most of the others around him, though a seasoned crewman. He began pushing through the huddle to where the Captain and other officers were, "Dixon, Sir. Engineer first class. Everybody here calls me 'Sparks'" he added, snapping a smart salute after introducing himself. "Sir, I'd like to volunteer for any mission to retrieve those flamethrowers."

"But they're in cargo one. The C...Captain's right, Sparks—you'd have to fight your way all the way down. How d'you do that without weapons?" remarked Davitch before the Captain could respond.

"With smarts." Sparks said, confidently tapping his temple with a finger.

"Why can't we hole up, open the airlocks and blow the damn things into space?" Asked Troutman. To him it seemed the most sensible solution, and he was surprised to find himself being the first one to suggest it; others had to be thinking the same thing.

The Captain took a moment to choose his words carefully. "That... is not a viable option, Lieutenant. There are protocols to consider." He noted that Eben, who had been standing in silence near the doorway, turned and left the room swiftly after beckoning a few junior officers to follow him. His suspicions flared again.

"Fuck protocol!" hissed Pharaoh, to a general murmur of affirmation from the others around her, even as Jonze implored her to relax again and again.

The Captain, though small and unassuming, was not cowed in the slightest. Somehow Pharaoh's anger seemed to draw out the tiger within him, and when he spoke again it was with such presence that it immediately commanded respect and everyone's attention. "You will hold your tongue while aboard MY ship, trooper. You will listen to what you are told and you will only speak when addressed from now on, do you understand?"

Pharaoh felt resentment burn in her breast through the drug haze, yet at the same time she also felt a conflicting sense of relief that the Captain wasn't as spineless as he first appeared. "Yes, Sir." She answered obediently.

The Captain looked over the worried faces of his crew and the troopers. It was a time for decisiveness. The ship was in lockdown and was secretly cruising away from 4CH. Once it reached the minimum safe distance past the system's dense asteroid belt to engage the stellar drive it would be too late to help themselves and the people stranded on the planet surface. As far as he could see there was two primary tasks facing them: the first, getting to the Marauder units to salvage the flamethrowers and fighting the aliens back into the trap set for them, was a task the troopers were best prepared for; As for the second, the Captain himself was now prepared to do something he had never wilfully done before, by breaking a direct order-the speed at which Field Marshal Rico had set off on the rescue mission had thrown into sharp relief the difference between the Mobile Infantry and Fleet; there was a closeness and camaraderie within the MI that Fleet lacked, and the boldness and balls Rico had shown had made a deep impression on the Captain, and made him muster stones enough to tell himself to do the right thing: Somehow his crew and he had to wrest back control of the Sentry from the long reach of the bureaucrats back on Earth.

"Captain, with all due respect, leading them into the drop bay airlocks and blowing them into space seems like the best idea I've heard all day." reiterated Troutman, sounding reasonable and calm, as a good officer should.

Again, the Captain took a moment to select his words. "There are... circumstances... in which the command of any federation ship may be superseded by executive controls, and command of the vessel placed solely in the hands of the ship's computer core, Guardian." He began, knowing what he would say next could be construed as an accusation... hell, maybe it was. "When the parasite infected personnel were brought aboard my vessel it set in motion a chain of events that resulted in a complete lockdown of the Sentry, the revocation of my command and an automated change of course."

Troutman, still trying to assimilate the circumstances and the consequences, eyed the Captain suspiciously. "A course change to where?"

"Guardian has re-routed us back to Earth. We are under computer control. We have been since Guardian broadcast their medical status."

"And my guys on the ground?" Asked Troutman, outraged—a sentiment quickly echoed by nearly everyone in the room.

"We don't leave people behind!" barked Pharaoh, now struggling with Jonze as she tried to get to her feet.

The Captain waited patiently until the wave of verbosity aimed at him subsided enough for him to speak and be heard. "I don't intend on leaving your people behind! Or my science team for that matter!" he said, addressing everyone in the room with utter conviction. "But before we can do a thing about it we have to make this ship ours again."

"So we bait the bastards into an airlock and flush 'em into space, what's the goddam problem?" demanded Shifter with his typical bluntness. Troutman eyed him cynically, and a simmering flash of resentment was returned to him. Shifter was a damn good soldier, but he was so strong willed that few people could get along with him. The animosity between them had grown after Troutman had been promoted above Shifter—who everyone knew was officer material, but who had just refused to play the game. Rico had grown so tired of promoting him and busting him down again that the two of them barely acknowledged each other any more.

"You need to open your ears, Son." responded the Captain. "The ship is in lockdown. We have no control over just about everything."

"It doesn't matter; they're mostly creeping around the aft anyway. They seem to like the propulsion subsystems for some reason." Said Pharaoh.

"Like boogeymen in a maze" added Davitch, for once not stammering.

The Captain addressed Troutman directly: "Pick your men for the flame unit run, Lieutenant. Engineer Dixon will assist them. I'll set the crew to finding a way of regaining control of the ship."

"I'll get you those units, Sir." Sparks added confidently to Troutman.

The lieutenant nodded and gestured for him to to join Sands. "This'll all be for nothing if you fail." He said to the Captain as the Sentry's crew began huddling around their leader.

"Don't be so blind, Lieutenant. There are more souls at risk aboard this ship now than there are on the ground."

Troutman stepped forward bristling with barely subdued outrage."If the federation want these things so badly they have a secret contingency plan, it can only spell bad news." he retorted angrily. "And if I could believe they wanted them for anything other than a weapon, maybe you could convince me the sacrifice would be worth it... But I think you and me know different. And if you DO fail, it WILL all be for nothing. Because there's no way—NO WAY—I'm going to let those things reach Earth."


	7. Chapter 7: Forged

Chapter 7: Forged

The sky had started to cloud over patchy, grey and heavy, bringing with it the threat of rain. The sun, not to have all its light leave this world, fell through the breaks in the clouds in bright shafts, as if the gaze of a curious god had fallen on this remote place to witness for itself the monsters of its creation thrown together into the violent powderkeg this world was destined to become. In the mountains, eerie wailing cries of some unknown creature carried on the breeze like a lament for what had come to pass, and what was yet to come...

Rico eyed the horizon suspiciously as the wailing animal sounds echoed in the air. He led his small four-man team down the tricky terrain, over loose, slick and damp rocks, often hidden under carpets of moss or fern fronds. It had taken longer than expected, and although the terrain had turned out more treacherous than it looked, at least the cloud cover had brought the heat and humidity down to something bordering on comfortable.

When they finally came to the river Poledouris doused his head with the cool fresh water, whispering a small blessing to himself as Rico searched for somewhere shallow enough to cross to the other side. The sinking feeling in Azumi's gut played on her mind. When Rico had asked for Poledouris to join him she had instinctively chose to stay by her friend's side. Now that instinctual impulse had seemed deeply irrational. In her gut, she would have swore, she felt danger close.

Master Chief and Rico were now in discussion, gesturing to a section of the far shore just upriver from a thick copse of massive, towering trees that slouched forlornly over the river, their limbs and branches weighted down by the thick, heavy foliage that grew abundantly. Their exposed roots splayed out like spider legs, delving deeply into the riverbank, where most of the heavy clay soil had been washed away by a flash flood long ago. Field Marshal Rico and the warrior seemed to have come to an agreement, both nodding affirmations and exchanging words out of earshot. Without any further deliberations Master Chief waded into the fast moving current with his blazer held high over his head. His progress was slow, and when he had reached almost halfway across the waters had reached his chest - almost Azumi's full height. He pushed on, struggling against the current once or twice but was never taken by it. As the Chief waded up onto the far shore he gave a satisfied thumbs-up to the others.

Rico nodded assuredly and unbuckled his webbing pouches, safely stowing what equipment into them that would fit. He wrapped the kit around his blazer and took a few tentative steps into the waters, also holding his equipment aloft. Poledouris and Azumi soon crossed to where he stood and began following suit. When his eyes fell on her diminutive form, she felt her cheeks flush with some unknown emotion that bridged somewhere between embarrassment, anger and relief. She already knew what he was going to say; his doubt about her ability to cross was plain, though he was polite enough not to state it outright. "You two might want to wait here."

"We'll be fine, Sir." she affirmed stolidly.

Rico looked unconvinced, glancing with deliberate affectation downstream, to where that huge waterfall lurked just behind the bend of the river, but was apparently ready to give her the benefit of the doubt. "Okay, then. You help each other across. The flow's not bad here, but where it steepens and starts to run off downstream it'll carry off anything that isn't made of lead. You get in trouble, you yell your damn lungs out.."

As he pushed on, the strengthening current caught him, making him stumble to his left. His progress was slower than the Chief's, and he twisted his hips and torso in the waters searching for some point where his body would offer least resistance against the flow of the river.

Poledouris checked the clips on Azumi's armour vest, silently reassuring her. She smiled wanly, but again she could have kissed him. As they stepped into the river together she felt a cold, oppressively bleak feeling rising within her in tandem with the cool waters that rose against her skin.

"It's getting strong already." grunted Poledouris as the current buffeted him. "Give me your weapon and hold on to my tac vest."

She handed him her weapon and webbing, which he hoisted over his head with his own; if they didn't make it over quickly she knew he would tire soon. She manoeuvred close behind him and slipped her fingers into the arm holes of his vest, just under the armpits. It offered good purchase. They moved through the waters at a shuffle, carefully searching with their booted feet for a steady surface on the rocky riverbed. They were less than halfway out when the waters reached to Azumi's neck.

"You okay?" spluttered Poledouris after a small surge momentarily swamped them.

"Keep going..." she croaked in return, coughing in fits and spasms as murky river water choked her.

Master Chief watched them from the far bank as Rico waded ashore safely but breathing hard. It was sometimes easy to forget Rico was as old as he was, although right now he did look aged, wet and tired. Rico sank to his knees on the shore as he uncoiled his webbing pouches from around his blazer and shouldered them on again.

"They're struggling.." remarked the spartan, taking a few impulsive steps back onto the water.

Wearily, Rico grumbled: "It's a shit load harder than you made it look." He got to his feet, feeling the muscles in his legs and side burn, and his heart pound in his chest and behind his eyes.

Azumi's feet could no longer reach the rocky river bottom, and time and again she was deluged by a rush of water, leaving her coughing and spluttering. The current tugged hard at her, trying wrest her grip from Poledouris' vest and flush her around that bend downstream to almost certain death, as if some malevolent force of the planet itself had evil intent in mind.

Poledouris suddenly lurched left, teetering off-balance by a sudden undertow. As the current caught Azumi, the shift in weight twisted both of them around fully to face the onrush. Poledouris frantically treaded at the riverbed before his feet found resistance against a large submerged boulder that reached all the way to the back of his knees. The weight and momentum of the water forced him hard against the rock, pinning him there, unable to move with Azumi grasping onto him dearly as the obstinate current tried to rip her away.

"Hang on! Hang on!" barked Poledouris in quickfire panic-induced gasps. His whole body was now one wrought muscle, tensed against the neck-high torrent as it tried to force his upper torso backwards over his pinned legs and drown him.

"They're in trouble!" Master Chief tossed his weapon onto the mud and charged into the river, hoping to reach them before the river could take them.

Rico watched helplessly as the spartan rushed to their aid. Poledouris was grimacing desperately, still grasping the weapons aloft with Azumi flailing behind him now, and being swamped time and time again. "Lose the weapons, trooper!" Rico ordered as he took a few unsure steps back into the water.

Poledouris ditched the kit and weapons gratefully, his hands now plunging into the waters behind him, fumbling, searching for that rock to which his legs were pinned, but which also acted as a miraculous anchor of sorts now. He braced his right arm against the boulder and twisted hard, feeling the drag of the waters against Azumi who still clung on tenaciously at his back. As he turned he came to bear up against Azumi, and clutched her around the waist like a lover's embrace. Her hands slipped from their holds and she touched his cheeks tenderly in a moment that passed in both a second and an eternity...

Strong hands suddenly grasped each of their shoulders, and they turned, wrested from that brief fatalistic moment where both of them had silently said goodbye to each other and lamented for never having been more than friends: The spartan's visor reflected their own suddenly bewildered expressions back at them. The weight of his Mjolnir armour barely served as an anchor against the force of the water, but the warrior made short work of guiding them to the safety of the shore.

Poledouris and Azumi both lay on their backs in the mud, regaining their breath and their strength, never glancing at each other again—that electric moment had died for now, supplanted by overwhelming fatigue.

Rico looked on them with self-damning consternation; they should have stayed put, and he should have had the smarts to order them to do it. He crooked an eyebrow as he looked to the river and sighed. As Master Chief passed by he reached out and grabbed his elbow. "Think you can spare that side arm?" he asked, indicating the spartan's M6G pistol.

The warrior pulled the gun and checked the breech, then the clip. "Spent. 'Less you're carrying point-five magnums, it useless."

"Oh, I think were fresh out of those." Rico said ironically. He pulled his own pistol and tossed it to Poledouris wordlessly, who nodded his thanks, still drawing deep heaving lungfuls of what he now considered to be greatly under-rated air.

"I'm sorry, Sir." Azumi panted. "If I hadn't tagged along..."

"I gave the order to ditch the weapons, trooper. Don't kick your own ass about it." He said walking away, trying to sound charitable but mostly failing; he felt like punching a wall. Repeatedly. He let them recover for a few more minutes as he and the Chief looked for a suitable trail to the west... towards that grim discovery the warrior had made earlier atop the promontory: those skinned human bodies trussed up by their ankles and left to hang like game. He still vainly hoped they weren't that missing squad of runners sent for reinforcements during the initial assault.

"On my first tour we hit Klendathu.." he murmured to the Chief beside him, absently rubbing his left thigh where he had received a serious injury on that clusterfuck of a mission all those years ago in the haze of his youth. "It was a bug stronghold... a major breeding hole that the brass wanted swept clean – a short sharp shock victory to raise moral back home after the Buenos Aires disaster. Trouble was the bureaucrats thought they had carte blanche to make the tactical decisions that the E-MIT council should have been making because of the backlash from the public after Buenos Aires was wiped off the map. Politicians planning the counter-attack and invasion... not military men." He scoffed. "It was a disaster. We were outnumbered, outmanoeuvred and outwitted by the goddamn bugs at every turn. Suffered over thirty percent KIA ratio. I was one of the lucky ones; bug tore out most of my left leg, but an officer dragged me back onto the dropship and I spent the best part of the next week in a stem-tank having my thigh muscles rebuilt. Then the reports came in – eyewitnesses saying that troopers listed as KIA had been left behind," his eyes fell to his feet and he shook his head, grinding his teeth at the memory. "Left behind alive. In the rush to run our asses back home we had pulled out and left maybe ten thousand men on that rock. Abandoned. Our next engagement, Planet P, was another shit storm too..." His mind dredged up the haunting memory of Dizzy Flores dying in his arms, her eyes pleading, and her last words.. the testament of her love for him... He closed his eyes and swallowed down the ball that was rising in his throat and willed away the bloody image of his dying friend and - for a brief solitary night - lover.

"After that attitudes changed. Christ, they had to; there was no way we could hope to beat the bug in a war of attrition, so we got smart... started to value the life of the soldier on either side of you, and they do the same for you. And most of all... you try not to leave anyone behind." He paused, lost in the past, unaware that Master Chief was watching him intently in silence. "D'you know how many men I've lost in my command?" Rico asked after a few moments.

"No." said the spartan, observing the tightening muscles in Rico's jaw as he continued to grind his teeth.

The field marshal laughed bitterly in spite of himself. "Me neither." He cast his eyes around his surroundings again for the first time since he had begun speaking, letting spectres of the past that had haunted him for so long fade into the mists of memory. He sighed heavily, looked downstream with a determined set in his body again and set off. "Let's do this." He added grimly.

The spartan watched Rico lead the way, followed shortly by the flagging troopers who had recovered sufficiently to move again. Now, for the first time, he felt he was getting a sense of who Field Marshal John Rico really was: a man of deep regret, seeking penance wherever he could find it for some self-perceived and unforgivable guilt he clung to. It was a dangerous need – one which might end up costing more lives.

Master Chief knew a death wish when he saw one.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Frustrated by his fruitless search, Phay'd approached the stark obstacle of the steep cliff face on the eastern range of the basin without having found a single trace of the Dek'd'tor or Gryshh. He found it hard to believe that the ancient Yautja could have outpaced him; at some point in his search he must have passed them by. Whether he had passed them living or dead was another matter altogether.

Claw sprung and swung from limb and bough, lithe and agile, brimming with youthful vigour. Phay'd's injury had been steadily scouring away his stamina, and he found himself lagging behind the swift pace Claw could sustain. It was with no small degree of envy that Phay'd watched the younger hunter spring clear from the last bough and sail through the air, landing expertly upon craggy cliff face and begin the difficult vertical ascent without pause. He craned his neck up to the summit of the cliff, to where a truly daunting and majestic waterfall cascaded from high above into a small cove, carved out of the rock by the force of the plummeting water over the ages. The climb was formidable. Already the inherent combative instinct of his species impelled him onwards just at the mere sight of young Claw making the difficult climb with such apparent ease. He quickly searched for a route up the cliff face, and felt no small amount of exultation at the realisation that the route Claw had heedlessly taken in his haste would bring him to an impasse where a deep overhang jutted out from the rock above – he would soon be forced onto a route nearer the waterfall.

Phay'd saved himself the effort by carefully scouting a path, instead of impulsively looking before he leapt. He sprung from the bough and slammed onto the solid wet rocks near the white water curtain of the waterfall, but his grip was true. Hand over hand, feet searching for secure footing with instinctual ease, Phay'd progressed up the cliff face at a determined pace that surprised even himself. The misty vapour in the air was a soothing balm on his skin and felt good. Above, he realised with rising contention, Claw had made it to the impasse and was edging to the right, headed straight into Phay'd's path. His competitiveness surged in him, and he tried to push harder, climb faster, reach higher, but his wound quickly taught him a searing lesson about the limits his body could endure in his current condition. As quickly as the pain subsided it flared again, bringing Phay'd to a breathless halt. When he inspected the wound, he saw that he had split the cauterised scabs wide open and was bleeding again.

Claw paid no heed and kept climbing regardless. There was a fire burning in the pup, Phay'd realised with grudging admiration – a blood lust that had still not been sated even now after slaughtering a horde of escaped hard meat from the seeder crash. That fire impelled him aimlessly and recklessly, Phay'd also concluded, which had been the death of many hunters over the ages. Soon Claw would crest that cliff face and disappear, without regard for the brother hunter he left behind...

A blast suddenly smashed through the ambient sounds of the world, audible even over the roar of the waterfall next to him: the sound of a Yautja shoulder burner. Distinct. Unmistakable. And coming from somewhere in the canopy of treetops behind him.

Another shot rang out from the jungle below. Phay'd peered down into the dense carpet of greenery but could see nothing. Yet he knew it had to be the Dek'd'tor and Gryshh. It had to be.

He peered down the cliff face, looking for a quick route down, fighting the impulse to just let go and fall back to the ground; even for a Yautja, a fall from the great height to which he had climbed would be lethal. Then his eyes fell on the churning cove pool at the base of the waterfall. He twisted and kicked himself away from the sheer cliff without hesitation now, and plummeted into the roiling water. The impact was hard, sending searing arrows of pain through the freshly opened wound in his side all over again, which he tried to ignore in the heat and hope of the moment.

The blasting was becoming regular and sustained now. If it WAS Gryshh he was under serious attack. Phay'd waded out of the pool and set off towards the sounds of battle, pausing only momentarily to realise that Claw had indeed disappeared over the peak of the colossal cliff. He felt a whim to be angry at the young hunter going off on his own without regard for others, and cooly realised it was not Claw's battle – Phay'd had taken it upon himself to act as the Dek'd'tor's guardian and protector, and the duty was his alone to bear. Let the pup find his way as the fates willed it.

He ran, sprinting and oblivious to the pain in his flesh, now dulled by the excitement of hormones racing around his system. The sounds echoed through the trees, occasionally sending him off in the wrong direction from one moment to the next, but he knew he was closing in on them. A sudden realisation of where he was and what he was potentially about to charge headlong into dawned on him, and as he reached the next broad-trunked tree he leapt, grasping a sturdy limb and pulling himself into the relative safety of the trees, before continuing apace.

Close now. He leapt headlong through a thick wall of foliage, landing smartly, and was instantly greeted by the warm hues of two living Yautja in the tree with him. The Dek'd'tor and Gryshh were perched upon a thick bough, the latter peering below at the scuttling insect hordes on the ground. Gryshh was firing his burner randomly and continuously into the crush. Phay'd set his own burner ready to fire as he scrambled through the branches to reach his hunt brothers, but when he tried to aim into the chaos below, the triangular targeting reticule couldn't lock onto a single target, such was the density of the crush of the insect hard meat below, all baying for Yautja blood. Disgust spiralled up in him: this vile new hard meat species... these unworthy insects had to be annihilated.

Something then gave him pause as he tried again and again to pick a single target from the horde below, and he realised that the seething insects were not after his brothers and he at all. They were fighting another species altogether – one that was as deadly to them as they were to they were to it. For the first time in his life, Phay'd watched the kainde amedha hard meat engage the native insectoids of this planet in nothing less than a war for the survival of their species.

Of all the sights he had seen in his life, he held this as the most magnificent...

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Rico's face burned with rage, although he remained silent. Poledouris approached him carrying a blood-caked dog tag. It was the third so far.

"Benson. Jacob, A." Rico said after taking the gory pendant, reading aloud the name stamped into the piece of tin. "Gunner. Mobile infantry." he finished heavily.

"Then they are yours." remarked Master Chief, inspecting the horrendous sight of a flayed human body dangling upside-down before him.

Rico nodded solemnly. "Alpha was cut off for a while. Keever sent them as runners to request reinforcement when that ship came down on top of them."

"How the hell did they get here?" Azumi asked quizzically, thankful that she hadn't eaten anything more substantial than a protein wafer in the last twenty-four hours. Her gorge rose at the sights and smells. Worse even than knowing of the horrifying death that these troopers had endured was the sight of a single carrion eating insect obscenely crawling over the naked white eyeball of one of the carcasses. Anger swelled in her breast to the point she almost thought that was the primary reason she needed to throw up.

"The hunters, I guess?" posited Poledouris.

Rico nodded as he pocketed the dog tags. "Well it wasn't Xipe fuckin' Totec. Yeah, the hunters." he affirmed darkly.

"No.. I mean how did they get here, to this spot?"

"They probably lost their nerve en route and ran." said the spartan, "...it happens."

Rico didn't like that theory at all, but grudgingly conceded it was possible, though he could barely admit it to himself.

"Sir, Alpha's position was miles north of here." Azumi interceded.

Rico glared at her from under his heavy brow. "I won't believe six mobile infantry troopers split and bugged out; for a start they must have known it would've stranded them on this rock..."

Azumi eyed the Chief sharply at the word 'stranded'. Then her countenance fell to a brief perplexed look, and she suddenly gestured for noise discipline. "You hear that?" she whispered. Everyone stood rigid, listening for any sounds above the thunder of the river.

Master Chief dialled up the volume in his helmet's aural receptors and listened intently. After a moment his head flicked downstream, peering over the cusp of the cliff and waterfall a hundred yards to their left. "It's close. In the jungle below."

"Sounds like a weapon." Azumi added. Poledouris shrugged to Rico, both of them unable to hear anything but the rush and gurgle of the river.

Then something trilled audibly in the dim jungle before them.

Azumi watched with a sense of unreal detachment as three red lasers set out on the points of a triangle suddenly bloomed on the spartan's chest, rising quickly to his head. Her gut instinct kicked home and she dived at Master Chief, using all her weight and thrust to knock him just a foot or two aside. The percussive blast of an energy weapon followed, and a searing bolt of energy split the air where the warrior had stood a fraction of a second before. It slammed into the ground hard enough to leave its own perfectly miniature impact crater in the mud, surrounded by crisped and charred mulch.

Rico wheeled around, pulling the stock of his blazer into his shoulder and peered down the sights. "That came from the trees! The trees!"

Poledouris aimed the paltry-looking pistol into the trees, aiming erratically at every minute movement from within the surrounding jungle. "I can't see a thing!"

Azumi scrambled closer to Poledouris as the spartan quickly assumed a firing position. His helmet's tracking system tried time and time again to lock onto some hidden target that moved quickly through the trees like a ghost.

Poledouris pulled Azumi close, shielding her body with his own, but he was already out of time. The unseen assailant trilled from high in a tree to their right, and as all turned to face the source of the sound, they all beheld for the briefest moment a translucent phantom deftly leap from one high perch to another. Their ears were assaulted again by the concussive blast from the phantom shape, and Azumi watched in utter horror as Poledouris fell...

Rico and the spartan opened fire, peppering the area above with a torrent of searing tungsten, but the phantom was swift and agile, and astonishingly managed to evade their gunfire.

Azumi hauled off her helmet and dropped to her knees where Poledouris lay, knowing that he was only wounded.. that he could be patched up... that he wasn't dying...

She was wrong.

Arterial blood jetted from a gaping wound in his throat, pooling in the mud, and his lips moved wordlessly like an asphyxiating fish out of water. In his eyes the last light of life died, becoming still and vacant, and Azumi did the only thing she was capable of in that moment and screamed his name in agony, as if her anguish could somehow be expelled in the same breath.

The warrior's weapon clicked dry, followed a moment later by Rico's. With well practised precision both dumped the empty clips, slammed in fresh ones and chambered the first round. "What was that?" Rico snarled.

"Cloaked." answered Master Chief, remembering how he had compared that first hunter carcass he had found to the covenant elites – the Sangheli; their cloaking technologies seemed remarkably similar.

Azumi pulled the pistol from Poledouris' dead hand and aimed into the trees. "Come and get me, you bastard!" she yelled, her voice cracking with sorrow. Her eyes burned and her whole body trembled, but she stood firm and fearlessly.

A hard monstrous bellow echoed from downstream, and the spartan and Rico turned to see a hunter in the flesh as it climbed over the cusp of the cliff near the waterfall, very much alive and uncloaked, bursting instantly into a bounding sprint as soon as it had noticed fitting prey. At the same moment Azumi began firing into the trees at their backs, and as they turned they saw the phantom figure stalking them still, like the closing of a trap.

"Two of them!" growled Rico.

They were caught in a pincer. The warrior knew they would stand no chance unless drastic action was taken, and in that moment he took the only course of action feasible: He swatted the pistol from Azumi's hands and tossed her his blazer which she dutifully took wordlessly and began blasting into the trees again. "Stay on that one!" he commanded Rico with incontestable force, pointing into the trees, "I'll take this one" he finished, wheeling on his heels and setting off at a barrelling sprint towards the other hunter who charged at them from downstream.

As they rushed each other the spartan flexed his wrist, feeling the satisfying jolt as the twin blades of the salvaged alien gauntlet pistoned out in readiness for the fight. The charging predator did the same, his blades springing out to full length, the deadly barbed blades glinting in the sun that fell through the cracks in the clouds. And as they closed the distance, both raised their weapons, and readied their bodies to deliver killing blows...

They clashed, hard and fierce: slashing and stabbing, wrestling body and will. The masked hunter lashed out, just missing the warrior's throat, one of the few vulnerable spots in his Mjolnir armour. The Chief's energy shield flashed in alert already. It followed the dodged blow with a shoulder barge, instantly and instinctively using its off-balance vulnerability and turning it to its advantage. Master Chief toppled backwards, the full weight of the beast on top of him. He used the predator's own impetus against it, drawing up his legs to his chest for leverage and kicking his heels into its abdomen before throwing it clear over him. It somersaulted awkwardly through the air and landed on its back with an audible grunt.

The Chief rolled onto his front and got to his feet again, waiting for the next assault. The hunter obliged, leaping to its feet, growling, slashing at him again with a blow that would have eviscerated him. The spartan dodged backwards and thrust low at its exposed belly, grimly trying to return the favour, but the beast had learned not over reach or overbalance this time. It twisted its hips away, leaving the warrior overextended, and volley kicked him in the ribs, sending the chief sprawling, followed by a swift and clever slash at him from above. Exposed, Master Chief lunged forwards and grasped its wrist. The talons of its free hand closed around his throat in a crushing vice grip, and from behind its own impenetrable mask the fearsome creature roared in his face. Its astounding strength bore down on the spartan, driving him to his knees as it simultaneously tried to choke the life out of him, and he was losing his footing as his feet slipped and slid on the clay mud of the riverbank. If the beast managed to drive him far enough into the river to swamp his legs it would have an insurmountable advantage...

The spartan took the only real option available to him now: he grasped both of the creature's wrists in his hands and hauled with all his weight and strength backwards into the waters. They toppled into the torrent together, caught immediately by the current and bashed and battered against hidden rocks beneath the foaming white surface. Locked together in a life or death struggle, spinning and tumbling in murky, disorientating turns, the hunter and the warrior were swept over the edge of the titanic waterfall, grasping each other in a deadly embrace.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

As the Chief broke left he knocked the pistol out of Azumi's hands and tossed her his blazer. "Stay on that one! I'll take this one!" he commanded. Then he was gone, leaving her and Rico to combat their invisible assailant in the trees. Rico grabbed her and hauled her into cover away from the exposed river edge. All she could think of was the moment Poledouris fell trying to shield her from the hidden threat. Tears of rage brimmed and burned in her eyes, and she vowed over and over again in her mind she would bring down the motherfucker that killed him or die trying.

They scrambled from cover to cover between the thick tree trunks, moving in short sprints and always peering up into the confusion of dense branches and leaves. They came to a halt at a steep bank of collapsed rocks where the upturned roots of a fallen tree gave good cover. Rico pointed to their right, where the trees thinned out before the land plunged into the basin below. Wan daylight penetrated the thick foliage there compared to what barely filtered through where the crouched. "Fifty, sixty feet. See the fern patch in the light?" said Rico, pointing.

"Yes, Sir." The fern patch grew in an exposed area where daylight would hit for most of the day, unhindered by the other flora.

"I'm gonna make a run to there." He turned, facing the dim jungle behind them. "I don't think it's got ahead of us yet, so when I move, you watch. You see anything move – anything – you blast the son of a bitch back to creation. You got it?" His orders were quick, concise, to the point and, as far as Azumi was concerned, suicidal.

"You can't use yourself as bait, Sir!" she began, but Rico's mind was set.

"That's an order, trooper. Eyes open. Anything that moves." He leapt from cover and set off at pace, zig-zagging across the terrain but deliberately staying as exposed as possible. Azumi watched him go briefly, before turning and watching the trees intently, looking for that strange light-shift that outlined the hidden hunter. The field marshal had made it halfway to the ferns without looking back when she heard a distinct trill – just like the one she had heard when it had taken a pot-shot at Master Chief earlier, and cold panic sank like a rock in her belly when she realised that this time it had come from directly above her. Before she had a chance to react she felt a cold thin noose slip over her head. It caught tight in the flesh of her neck and constricted around her throat. Suddenly she was hauled from the ground, the thin wire biting into her skin, making her gag and splutter as her windpipe was being crushed. The blazer fell from her hands, and she frantically clawed at the noose that was killing her. As her eyes rolled irresistibly upwards and her lids began to fall heavily, she saw in the branches above that vague humanoid figure up close. Its hidden eyes flared brightly before vanishing from sight once more, and for an instant she wasn't sure if what she saw was real or the dying neurological impulses of her oxygen-starved brain deceiving her senses with the first signs of asphyxiation. It hauled on the cord again, pulling her up into the tree towards it. She felt her eyes bulge from their sockets, white spots dancing in her vision. Her tongue began jutting from her mouth and her clawing fingers and hands fell limp to her sides. Her legs ceased to thrash wildly, and a fearful darkness began to creep into the periphery of her vision.

In the dim distance of the encroaching darkness she heard a distant burst of gunfire and a monstrous growl... then she was dimly aware of her whole body suddenly feeling weightless before it slammed into something hard.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Rico had reached the ferns without sighting the predator. Damn, he was so sure it would work. Cursing, he turned to beckon Azumi to follow him into the open while he covered her. For a moment his brain couldn't quite register what his eyes saw as she was dragged clawing and kicking into the air, her eyes bugging out as an invisible cord bit deeply into the flesh of her neck, garrotting her to death.

White eyes flashed briefly in the branches above her, giving him a target to fix on. He sprinted forwards yelling out a wordless battle cry, knowing that each moment counted if he was to save her. As he halved the distance he simultaneously skidded to a halt and dropped to one knee. He lifted his weapon, steadied it and took aim at the vague distorted shape in the tree and squeezed off three rounds.

The hunter growled as gouts of luminous green blood splattered against the bark of trunk. The cord slid from its hands, and Azumi plunged twenty-five feet, slamming hard into the dirt, where she lay immobile. Rico opened up again, full auto, as he closed in on its position, his eyes searching in the gloom for its distinctive blood trails. He caught a flash in the peripheral vision to his left, and caught a glimpse of the phantom as it sprinted across a strong limb from the tree to his left and easily bounded the twenty-foot gap to the next. Still yelling his fury, Rico squeezed and held the trigger of his blazer again, spraying bullets even as the creature was in mid-flight, but each round missed its mark.

It clicked dry. Rico cursed himself again for not controlling his fire. He fingered the magazine release, letting the empty clip fall to the ground. But before he could reach for another, the phantom dropped from a high bough, caught a lower one like a gymnast and, using its entire body weight to give it momentum, kicked Rico squarely in the chest so hard that he was lifted off his feet by the blow. He landed hard on his back, all the air driven from his lungs, and desperately unable to draw another breath. Stunned and senseless, his vision blurred and doubled, he watched helplessly as the predator dropped from its perch and walked almost casually to where he lay, struggling for breath and the return of his senses.

Its perfect camouflage began to dissipate, slowly revealing the fearsome hunter beneath it. A series of three bleeding parallel slashes marked where Rico had hit it moments ago, but even in his stunned fugue he could see they were barely grazes. The masked creature regarded him with apparent curiosity as he fumbled around on the ground looking for his blazer. A distinctive triangular laser sight flashed from a corner of its mask just above its right eye, and Rico watched the red dots trace a route from his legs, up his abdomen, before coming to rest at his chest. It trilled once, and Rico prepared himself for the end.

_And not a god damn minute too soon_, he thought to himself, bitterly thankful that at least it wasn't a bug that finally had his number. His hands stopped grasping among the rotting leaves for his weapon, and he faced the predator fearlessly. "C'mon, you bastard," he growled. "Finish it."

The hunter made a few strange guttural noises for a moment. "C'mon, you bastard," it repeated in a loathsome parody of Rico's voice. "Finish-"

Five inches of honed steel suddenly burst through its windpipe. The predator lurched, green blood spurting in powerful arcs that drizzled Rico. It clutched at the blade that had been rammed into its neck from behind, gurgling and staggering. The shot from its shoulder cannon went astray, cleanly blowing a hole the size of its head through the trunk of the tree behind Rico.

The seven-foot beast faltered once more before the strength in its legs gave out. When it sank to its knees, Rico saw Azumi standing behind it. She tore the knife from its neck and plunged it in again just under its jaws, leaving the blade fully buried up to the hilt in its flesh. The hunter went limp and collapsed sideways onto the ground as she stood exaltedly over its body, rubbing angry purple ligature marks on her neck. "That's for 'douris." she croaked.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

The spartan and the predator were washed tumbling over the waterfall's edge, still locked together in their life and death struggle. They plunged for thousands of feet, wrestling with each other over every inch of the plummet, before finally hitting the water of the cove pool so hard it felt like hitting concrete.

The predator surfaced from the shallows near the edge of the pool first, the electronics of its hunt armour spitting sparks and jagged ribbons of electricity crackling in protest at the soaking. It reached around to a holster at the base of its spine and hauled a short double-headed spear from it, thumbing the activation switch. The barbed tips on each end shot out four feet into the air, turning it into a formidable hand held weapon. It waited long, drawn-out seconds for its quarry to surface - this strange armoured human who was only visible in the same spectrum as the hard meat.

Hidden beneath the surface of the water, Master Chief crawled by the creature, staying close to the churning water at the base of the waterfall to avoid detection. The hunter prodded at the water with its spear (which, alarmingly, the spartan couldn't remember it having in its possession before now) seeking him...

He crawled past it enough to blind-side it, then rose slowly behind it silently. The steely grey sky grew heavier by the moment, pregnant with rain. Lightning suddenly split the sky from horizon to horizon. The thunder soon followed, drowning out all other sounds in the world for just a moment... Master Chief picked a spot between the hunter's shoulder blades to strike, and readied his arm to deliver the killing blow...

The predator wasn't fooled; the sensitive olfactory glands in its mouth had smelled his distinctive scent - something close to spent gunpowder and smelted metal - as he surfaced. It wheeled around with its spear and deflected the strike expertly. It had him in a vulnerable position now and the warrior knew it. The beast followed the deflection with a full spear stroke, aimed squarely for the warrior's head, who narrowly ducked it.

Both were now in a position to counter, but the predator was the first to act: it smashed its fist into the visor of his helmet, the studs mounted upon each knuckle of the fingerless hide gloves it wore leaving dull scratch marks on its surface. The warrior reeled backwards, mired to his hips in the waters. Relentlessly, the hunter charged and jabbed with its spear, disrupting the spartan's struggling energy shield and tearing open a gash in his armour's undersuit, just below the armpit. Clear hydrostatic gel oozed from the gash like blood. Master Chief retaliated, lunging forwards and splitting the air with a savage slash of the blades on his wrist. The blades caught the cusp of the hunter's mask with such brute force that it was torn clean from its face, and flew spiralling into the water nearly thirty feet away, quickly sinking beneath the surface.

The predator bellowed with outrage, its mandibles at full extension, a fearsome intimidating maw. The severed life support tubes connecting its pack to its mask jetted freezing gas vapour that obscured the hunter's vision. It swung its spear wildly, consumed by anger.

Despite his own considerable genetically enhanced strength, and the suit of armour which boosted his capabilities greatly, the Chief found fighting the beast some of the most gruelling hand-to-hand combat he had ever encountered, for the predator's strength, stamina and speed were astonishing. And with the temperature-regulating hydrostatic gel oozing from the gash in his armour's flexible membrane, the temperature within his suit had already begun to rise. Damp sweat rose from his pores into the fabric lining.

The hunter dropped the spear absently and backed away a few feet as the last of the gas leaked from the whipping tubes. The warrior closed the distance as fast as he could, arm upraised, blades pointed to cleave through the predator's ribcage. The beast, with alarming ease and swiftness, caught the spartan's arm in both of its hands and twisted under. The Chief's elbow locked, his carbide enhanced bones and the elbow joint of his Mjolnir armour straining almost to breaking point. The warrior tried to twist out of position, but the hunter was skilled and, instead of freeing himself from its grip, Master Chief found that the predator subverted his escape attempt into a trap that allowed the creature to catch him in a crushing bear hug with both arms trapped immobile at his sides. It lifted him clear from the water, despite the half-ton suit of armour he wore.

He looked the predator in the face; its yellow eyes, set within by small deep-black pupils, screwed into a livid sneer, and the creature growled blackly.

Precious air was squeezed from his lungs, and the spartan uttered wordlessly in pain. Its hold on him was so tight that he couldn't draw another breath. He arched his back to gain some leverage and let his head fall backwards before, with all of his strength, he slammed forwards and head-butted the hunter as hard as he could. The brim above the visor of his helmet cut a deep and wide gash into the predator's crest at the sweet spot above its eyes. It reacted violently, dropping the chief and trying to palm the blood away that streamed into its eyes, blinding it. It then swung both arms aimlessly in outrage and roared. Master Chief got back to his feet, drawing much needed breaths, and let the predator come to him. The hunter swung a left, a right... the Chief caught each wrist in his hands before swiftly driving his right foot hard into his opponent's guts. The predator doubled over with a hard grunt, and the spartan released it to let it fall face-first into the mud-churned water.

Even yet, it seemed to find ever increasing strength and stamina that astonished Master Chief; no sooner had it hit the water than he felt his legs being hauled from beneath him. The hunter lunged from the waters as the chief fell with his right leg in its grip. As the spartan thrashed in the water, it closed its other hand around his throat, talons crushing his windpipe again despite his protective undersuit. With an unbelievable show of sheer, brute strength, it hauled him from the waters and hefted him clear over its head. The spartan squirmed in the hunter's grip like a hare in the clutches of an eagle, bracing for whatever came next.

The predator turned to face the craggy solid cliffs beside the waterfall and trilled knowingly in satisfaction. Its muscles tensed like the springs of some ancient war machine, and it hurled the spartan tumbling through the air. The Chief's back slammed into solid rock so hard that all the air was driven from his lungs again. The reactive hydrostatic gel layer of his armour tried to compensate and cushion the sudden impact, but ended up ineffectively spurting out of the gash the beast had cut into his undersuit with its spear. White spots danced before his eyes as he hit the churning whitewater at the base of the waterfall. His helmet's heads-up-display flickered with snowy static and flashed a warning that his energy shield had completely failed. More systems flashed up as malfunctioning too as the suit's diagnostic systems struggled to compensate and rebuild the carbon nano-tube connectors for several failures at once. As he tried to stand, he felt his leg struggle against the malfunctioning servo-motors of the suit's right leg; it jolted back acutely every time he tried to straighten his leg. In a genuine moment of anger and frustration, the Chief smashed the butt of his right fist into the knee joint repeatedly. On the seventh hit the servos sprang to life again and ratcheted his leg out so hard and fast it would have fractured the legs of any normal human many times over. Somewhat thankfully, he saw that the hunter had done to itself what the spartan had been trying to do for the whole fight: it stood staring at him, chest rising and falling deeply, exhausted now from the sheer effort of throwing him at the cliff face. Master Chief used the moment's respite to catch his breath; the inside of his suit was now slick with sweat due to the catastrophic failure of its thermo-regulation systems.

They faced each other now in a moment of stillness. Again, those sounds of conflict echoed from the west. Lightning crackled, thunder rolled, and rain began to lash down.

The hunter trilled. Seemingly content it had his attention, it made a point of lifting its right arm and gazing at the blades mounted there. Its intention was unmistakable; this was how it wanted to fight: unmasked, unarmoured and down to its most rudimentary weapon. It seemed to wait for the spartan to agree, but if it was waiting for him to unmask himself, or ditch his armour, it was in for a long, long wait; this was no matter of honour for Master Chief; no mere contest to save face – this was survival: the defeat of your enemy at all costs. Any and all advantages were taken. Would the beast have been so different if its camouflage field still operated?

The hunter seemed to realise the warrior's refusal after an moment. Its mandibles twitched as a strange sucking came from low in its throat, as if with irritation. It sank on its knees to a low squat, opened its arms wide, chest heaving. The hunter roared, loud and fierce, fearless and intimidating. It roared until its breath gave out. The noise echoed, somehow magnified by the small cove which had been worn into the cliff face over untold ages, like the wrath of a titan.

The metaphorical gauntlet had been thrown down, the challenge accepted. The warrior and the hunter faced each other, knowing only one of them would leave alive...

Lightning seared the sky overhead, the bolt splitting and forking from horizon to horizon like the colossal skeletal hand of death itself descending upon them to claim the vanquished. And as a deafening crack of thunder shattered the air, they charged at each other, ready to fight to the death...

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Rico's side throbbed hard, and the pain didn't seem to be abating. Every breath brought a new, hot lance of pain screwdriving from his lower left ribs to his armpit. For a moment he though those ribs were broken, sending a cold bolt of dread into the pit of his stomach, down his spine into his legs; he had been so prepared to let it end at the hands of the hunter; to lose to a tangible foe that he could look in the eye as the curtains fell... But to be so injured that he couldn't move, to rot slowly and risk the lives of others as he did so – that wasn't an end he was prepared to accept.

Azumi pulled her field knife from the carcass of the dead hunter and wiped it's blood on her fatigues. "How bad you hurt, Sir?" she said in a dry rasp, still rubbing the ligature marks around her throat.

Rico nodded, carefully trying to draw a satisfying breath to allow him to speak. "Hurting, yeah. Wounded, no. I think..." He fumbled in a webbing pouch for a moment, gasping more than once as pain flared. Azumi noticed that his hands were quaking badly. From his medkit pouch he pulled a foil-sealed styrette, filled with a full measured dose of the powerful field medication dextromorphamphetamine. The full dose would leave his head clouded and filled with incoherent nonsense – something he couldn't afford right now. He ripped the foil open and pushed the plunger of the styrette until more than half of the dose was gone before he jabbed the needle into his leg and dosed himself; it would be just enough to take the edge off the pain and still leave his senses sharp.

The painkiller's warmth began to spread through him instantly, rising up his body, giving him butterflies in his tummy and accelerating his heart rate. He took a deep satisfying breath without worrying about his side feeling like it was being stabbed with hot pokers. After a moment he got stiffly to his feet, still hurting some and wobbling a little from the medication in his system. His first few steps towards the cliff edge made the world spin around him, and a nauseating slug sank in his gut. He carefully crouched down to pick up his blazer, hoping that the nausea and dizziness would pass soon.

Azumi crossed back to the tree she had hung from just moments ago and picked up her own gun, then her helmet from beside Poledouris' body. "We bugging out now, Sir?"

Rico shook his head blearily. "The Master Chief..."

"Sir, with all due respect, he's the reason we're neck deep in this shit right now. He's the reason we're all standing on this rock. And he's the reason 'douris is dead." she said emphatically. Rico could plainly see her trying to keep tabs on her anger. Below that he saw a new hardness and coldness in her eyes; usually it took a lot of years in the service to develop that look – Rico knew it well from every time he had looked in the mirror for the last twenty-something years.

"Duly noted, Trooper. But nobody gets left behind." He retorted, too weary to let her anger incite any in him. He set off for the cliff edge again, blazer drooped at one side, his free hand nursing his other side.

Azumi finally snapped. She stood rigid as rain began lashing down, trembling with anger and grief, eyes filling with stinging tears. "What is it with you, man! How many lives is he worth? How many more will it take?" Her voice was almost a metallic grating sound now.

Without turning to face her, Rico grumbled to himself: "Just one more..."

She strutted after him, full of enough righteous rage to feel assured that what she still had to say would put the Rico in his place. Damn rank and damn discipline; she was going to open his god damn eyes! Her boiling blood quickly chilled when she heard the roar of a hunter emanate from beyond the cliff edge. She halted dead in her tracks and prepped the blazer in her hands, ready to pepper anything that moved, and wired enough to keep her eyes peeled in every direction this time; even minute complacency on this world had been a painful lesson to learn.

Rico kept walking towards the cliff regardless, just blinking the rain out of his eyes, his gun still hanging loosely from the hand at his side. "That thing sounds seriously pissed off." he remarked over his shoulder to Azumi who lingered about thirty feet behind him now. Lightning suddenly scorched the sky from horizon to horizon, sending cold shivers up his spine as he recalled that lightning storm earlier – when flaming alien wrecks were new to him and the hunters were nothing more than mangled, lifeless corpses. Then the lightning had seemed bizarre and wrought of true chaos; now he found it ominous and foreboding.

He reached the sheer drop and looked down. In the cove far below, two distant figures were engaged in mortal combat. The water of the pool churned around their bodies as they lunged and slashed and wrestled with each other in a duel so finely balanced on a razor's edge that any one moment of indecision or weakness would mean death.

Azumi caught up and knelt beside Rico. "Motherfu-" she sneered when she saw the still living predator below. Her eyes were seeking a better vantage point instantly, and she scrambled to a nearby outcropping right at the water's edge to get a better view of the combat spectacle taking place down there.

Rico pulled his field binoculars and watched the spartan with growing awe; this guy was taking on the hunter hand-to-hand and was giving as good as he got. "That's incredible..." he murmured to himself. He glanced aside and saw Azumi training the sights of her blazer into the cove below, her finger ready to squeeze the trigger. "NO!" he barked, so hard and forcefully that a lance of pain burned through the soothing painkiller racing through his system and made him catch his breath. "...it's his kill..." he gasped, clutching his side.

He turned again to watch the combatants. The predator feigned a strike at the chief with its blades, making the spartan dodge aside, right into its real intended blow, as it's elbow struck hard into his throat. The beast advanced, snarling, in the fraction of a second it took the chief to recover. It struck an underhand blow with its blades that was intended to drive up into the warrior's heart from below his ribcage. The Chief dodged again and grasped the arm, but the hunter had pre-empted him. It grasped at the chin of his helmet, trying to hook its talons into any nook to give it leverage enough to rip off his helmet and expose his head – or, hell, maybe just rip his head off, Rico thought. The spartan smashed the palm of his hand hard into his opponent's face to little effect, since the creature had no nose to break – instead, his fumbling fingers found the nearest protuberance on its face, grasped it, and twisted. The beast made an unusually high pitched roar of agony as Master Chief broke off its lower left mandible with a gut wrenching **SNAP**! Rico smiled grimly, like the bloodthirsty mob at a Roman gladiatorial fight as the beast reeled away in pain while the Chief pitched the severed jaw bone back at it spitefully. A transformation overcame the predator at that moment; it had been pushed over the edge with that final humiliation and lost all self-control. It's eyes became snarling black pits and its body fitted and spasmed as an overwhelming rage overcame it. It beat its chest so hard that it drew blood, and roared so bitterly that it's voice seemed to contain two wholly separate grating octaves at the same time. Inevitably, it rushed the spartan, berserking uncontrollably. It slammed into him like a freight train, and both were lost under the murk of the water instantly.

Rico watched the dark waters intently as long, tense moments passed, waiting for one of them to surface. The waters of the cove were dark and churned with mud, and where they didn't bubble and foam at the base of the waterfall, they shimmered as the rain hit. "Where is he?" Rico asked under his breath.

"They're both dead meat. Killed each other." Azumi remarked coldly.

Rico shook his head and peered back through his binoculars. "C'mon, you son of a bitch!" he willed.

The pool bloomed with a luminescent green cloud, swirling and mixing nebulously in the dull waters. Suddenly, the spartan erupted to the surface, awash with diluted predator blood that ran off his armour in streams and beads. His chest heaved quickly with deep breaths, and his stance was still combative, as if he expected the hunter to spring from the pool and continue the fight. Rico realised just how unlikely that was now when he saw what the warrior held in his left hand: like a victor on an ancient battlefield, truly worthy of the spartan name, he stood bathed in the blood of his enemy, grasping the severed head of his foe.

Like Perseus holding the head of Medusa, it was a moment that seemed to transform the warrior into a mythical being: A slayer of demons. A champion of Olympus. Heroic. Legendary.

Holding it by the headlocks, Master Chief observed the grisly prize briefly, before tossing it into the spreading haze of the hunter's blood in the water before him. When he turned to face back up the waterfall and saw the distant specks of Rico and Azumi, he gave a burned-out thumbs-up.

Watching the Chief through his binoculars, Rico couldn't stop the beaming grin that spread across his face. "God damn." he marvelled.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Dalray and his squad had made good progress, covering around five miles of the rocky volcanic land in the hour since Field Marshal Rico and the mysterious Master Chief had headed off to investigate those flayed bodies on the far side of the river. The squad had begun to grumble when the Field Marshal had left, and Dalray had let them; the heat of the day and the damn biting insects – not to mention being cut off on a shit-heel place like this - was enough to turn anyone's milk sour. Just as it had begun to cloud over the terrain had levelled out again and spirits had rose briefly, though a nervous tension was still evident among the group. Even he had felt it, and knew it wasn't just the usual steeliness of being on op and in combat; there was a thin, flinty edge to their wariness that could easily form a spark if both states collided.

The terrain now showed evidence of relatively recent volcanic activity: to the south a long fissure cleaved the mountain in half, and an expanse of magma had spilled from there in the last few months or years, creating the black and gnarled plain of desolation now before them. The petrified lava was the colour of graphite, and nothing grew there except hardy, feeble weeds, though even these were few and far between, only growing in the nooks amongst the bulbous, knurled basalt, where precious water and dust had collected.

More and more tricky terrain to cross. And worse: rain was blowing through on the wind already, and by the look of the approaching clouds, the sky was going to open up any time soon.

Dalray looked blankly at the compass in his hands, which spun around at random, pointing in alternate directions, though he had never turned since flipping it open. "Damn thing's shot to hell." he muttered.

"It's the iron in the basalt, Sir." Said Frears – a bookish looking trooper who could only be in the service for citizenship – in the passing. "It's just ever so slightly magnetic, but in these quantities..." he waved an arm encompassing the whole of the plain.

"Damn." murmured the lieutenant. "We'll just have to keep trekking and hope we don't go too far off course by the time we get by this." He said, peering from left to right at the plain of dark rock. He cocked a finger at the fissure to the south, "That's gotta be a bug paradise. If this place hasn't erupted for a while, the bugs'll find it irresistible. And what with all the magnesite in the mountains and the iron in the rocks, the sentry's echo might not have picked up any deep caves before we dropped. It wouldn't be the first time. Just keep a close watch, okay?" He raised his voice so that everyone could hear him. "Stay frosty, people."

As if on cue the sky erupted with lightning, and rain began to lash down, drenching everyone as they began crossing the basalt plain. The rolling peaks and ruts of the rock were soon shiny and slick-looking as the downpour soaked into everything. Dalray looked northwards, vainly hoping to see the four distant figures of the field marshal and his group returning. It seemed a fool's hope, and he wasn't a man given to flights of fancy; he was a practical man who lived in the moment – a man whose only real thought of the future was in anticipating his enemy. The fact was, here and now, he had a squad to lead over the mountains, through what was now potentially bug territory on a damn strange world amidst damn strange events. The fact was that Field Marshal Rico had known the risks when he had set off with too few men to effectively defend himself in the event of a bug attack – or anything else for that matter. The fact was that Rico was now likely dead. And this world hadn't gave up all of its secrets just yet.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

When the doctors had cleared Felix Van Buren fit for active service, they had overlooked his family history of mental illness; the numbers of fresh recruits had plummeted in recent years, and when the shrinks had ticked all the boxes declaring him competent, they did it with the full knowledge that the grinding mental demands placed on every serviceman could potentially make them snap.

During basic he had quickly become the butt of a lot of jokes for his large, bulging eyes and the way he walked with his head low and shoulders high and tense all the time, earning him the name 'Oddball'. In his fourth week of basic training he had suffered administrative punishment after he attacked a fellow recruit and broke his jaw for name calling. But with new recruits thin on the ground, the brass gave him ten lashes and had him back-trooped - along with the trooper had had injured – to repeat his basic training from the beginning.

For the first few weeks, while the lashes were still visible on his flesh and the memory of them still fresh, he had been an exemplary recruit. Though command knew of the taunting he still received daily they did nothing to prevent it, thinking that mental endurance was a quality that would have to be hammered into him by any and every means – that, after all, was how troopers needed to operate in the field; to keep their shit together no matter what the circumstances.

It was then he had started to hear the flies. Buzzing in his ears, crawling over his flesh.. he swore he could hear them, feel them. Black, alien, disease-bearing flies, born from death, writhing maggots in rotting meat, living in shit. Crawling. Buzzing. In his ears. In his mind...

He could hear them, feel them, but never see them. His eyes flitted restlessly in the endless pursuit of the elusive pests. Once he had caught himself swatting at the air with his hands, though he quickly nipped that particular impulse in the bud as soon as he realised he was doing it; he didn't want to look like a crazy person now, did he?

Active duty on bug worlds had almost been a respite. The bugs were real, tangible enemies that could be seen and destroyed. Their shrill screeches drowned out the buzz of the flies in his ears. He was more afraid of the dark places in his mind than the bug. World after world, he sought out bug patrols to quiet his mind, for when the creatures themselves were dead, their cries echoed in his mind for many hours afterwards. Recently, even that form of twisted therapy had begun to lose its effect.

Right now the flies buzzed relentlessly: a cacophony of dirty, diseased insects in his head, crawling over his brain, behind his eyes. The looks he got from his comrades were always the same; he was forever the outcast.

When Field Marshal Rico had asked for volunteers to return to the surface after the first engagement with the arachnid, and the celestial freakshow afterwards, he had been among the first to step up to the plate. To his surprise he, among others, had been hand picked the the field marshal himself for the search and rescue mission. He had accepted it eagerly.

Now here they were: crossing a black basalt plain in the lashing rain, abandoned by the field marshal. And worse: the bug hadn't dared rear their ugly heads since they had set foot down here again. The flies were buzzing louder than ever – an infuriating pestilent swarm.

"D'you hear that?" asked Kovacs. For the briefest of moments Van Buren thought that Kovacs could hear the swarm too, but after a moment he saw that Aguerre, a short, clean shaven Hispanic, was the recipient of the question.

"Think I did." answered Aguerre. Kovacs halted, reedy and wiry. Aguerre too. And Van Buren came to a stop behind them unnoticed or ignored. "Kinda like a hiss or something."

The trio stood for a few moments as the rest of the squad passed by, waiting for the rumble of thunder and marching boots to die away. "Think it came from there?" asked Kovacs, bristling as he pointed to the fissure.

Aguerre waited a long unsure moment, ear cocked to the south, before he answered: "I don't think so. Didn't sound like no bug neither..."

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

As they crossed the plain, and though he still didn't fully realise he was doing it, Dalray checked over his shoulder again. Instead of his hoped-for sighting of his commanding officer bringing up the rear – even though his rational mind had practically given him up for dead – he saw three troopers standing still, facing up the slight incline to where the fissure cleaved the mountain. He immediately signalled the rest of the squad to halt and take defensive positions before jogging back to them.

As he approached he saw it was Kovacs, Aguerre and Van Buren who were lagging. "What's going on?" he asked at barely more than a whisper.

"Thought we heard something." Kovacs responded in kind. "Kinda hiss."

"Didn't sound like no bug, Sir." Aguerre added apprehensively. Van Buren glanced around with those big bugged-out eyes. Dalray, already uneasy around the trooper in the first place, became more unsettled...

Only the sound of rain and the crack and rumble of the thunderstorm. No hisses, no bug screeches. It was still enough to convince the lieutenant that the open, exposed ground they had to cover should be done as soon as possible. "Let's move." he ordered. "This isn't a place to linger."

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Van Buren hung back still, even after the El-tee left with Kovacs and Aguerre on his heels. Somewhere in his mind he was convinced that if he looked at the rock he could almost see them... Something in his mind told him that the flies that had tormented him for nearly four years were in the rock itself; that if he focussed hard enough on one point on the undulating surface of the black basalt...

The way the rain caught the light in that briefest of moments when the droplets exploded as they hit the surface... Yes! Yes, he could almost see them! He could almost see-

Teeth?

A grinning mouth emerged slowly from a deep rut in the dark wet rock. Uncoiling like a serpent, a creature rose from the rut, tall and dark. Fearsome and alien. Its long smooth head and dark skeletal body had been sublimely camouflaged amongst the rain-slicked basalt. It's eyeless head faced him as it rose to its full height, jaws set in a mocking grin as it now looked down upon him. It hissed...

For the first time in nearly four years, the sounds of the black, crawling swarm in Felix Van Buren's head fell utterly silent. For the first time in his life he beheld a horror with his own eyes that was worse than anything his mind could conjure. As the alien's mocking jaws parted, revealing more needle sharp teeth within its dark maw, a single tear rolled down his face. "Thank you." he murmured softly...

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

The strange noise didn't register as human at first to Dalray's ears: High pitched and agonised, weirdly warbling lower and lower, like an off-key instrument. It took him a moment to realise it was a man's scream. At the very moment he did, he felt his blood curdle.

The whole squad turned, startled by Van Buren's cries, and saw him in the grip of a tall slender alien creature. It's long tail had punched through his tough sternum and out of his back, and it held his face close to its own eyeless head in what seemed like a horrific version of a lovers' embrace. Its tongue lanced forwards, exploding through the back of his head in a shower of brains and skull fragments. Van Buren's mutilated corpse slid from its hands like a forgotten toy as it turned to face the troopers who mutely watched the nine-foot tall nightmare made flesh. Its lips peeled back in a defiant sneer. Again, it hissed as it slinked over onto all-fours.

Just as the aghast troopers were raising their weapons to waste the thing, the whole air filled with more loathsome hisses. Aliens began to rise, unfurling from their hiding spots among the gnarled basalt, every one of them previously hidden until they had moved. More than two dozen in all, surrounding the squad – a deadly corral of menacing grimaces full of primal, deadly intent.

Aguerre's throat exploded as a creature that his risen behind him unseen began the slaughter. Kovacs could only blink in shock for a moment as crimson speckled his face. "Guys...?" he uttered numbly "Guys?" The creature sprung at him, tearing into his flesh with its talons.

The squad opened fire all around at the surrounding creatures, despite Dalray's orders to concentrate fire on the cluster of aliens cutting off the escape avenue to the east. Soon screams of terror and agony filled the air, joining with the gunfire and screeches, a twisted opera of horrors. Troopers who had let the creatures get too close before opening up gazed in dread as acid blood ate into their flesh.

Frears kept his finger on the triggers as he backed away from the hissing monstrosity that rushed at him, spraying bullets everywhere but at his target and letting his gun run hot. Dalray knelt and shot the legs out from under it, sending it tumbling head over heels, screeching and writhing. Without realising the lieutenant was behind him, Frears kept back-pedalling until he ran into Dalray and tripped over him. He tumbled over, limbs flailing and finger still squeezing the trigger. Dalray watched helplessly as Frears' aimless torrent of bullets first peppered an alien's legs, before slamming a half-dozen rounds through Sommers' lower right abdomen and ribcage.

Grimacing and burning with anger at Frears' god damned reckless amateurism, Dalray got to his feet and hauled Frears upright, pointing to where three aliens had hemmed-in Hooper and Nicks. "Pick 'em off, trooper!" he roared, shoving Frears forwards before pulling a grenade from his webbing and tossing it behind him to where another two aliens encroached on the squad. Frears had the good sense to switch to semi-auto before perforating one of the aliens that had surrounded his buddies, leaving them free to take down the others.

Dalray watched the grenade he threw turn the stalking aliens into smoking, quivering lumps, clearing the escape route to the east. His quick glance behind him didn't offer much hope for their chances of escape; of the thirteen troopers that had started across that plain, only six – including himself – were still standing. And now another cruel toss of the dice of fates had seemed to come up snake-eyes, almost literally, as he saw more and more of the sleek serpents coming over the summit at the south-western range of the petrified lava flow, creeping towards their position. "Move it!" he ordered as the last of the surrounding aliens dropped full of holes.

Cox lay screaming on the ground, trembling and wide-eyed, watching as acid ate through his legs, which leaked profusely from the dead alien which had collapsed on top of him when it had been cut down in a hail of bullets. Nicks grabbed his arms and began hauling him away to even harder screams from Cox when he watched his legs come away as stumps at the knee from beneath the dead creature.

Dalray felt a darkness swirl in his mind, and wondered if shooting Cox might not be the best thing for everybody still standing – everyone had heard the rumour that Rico had put a round in the chest of his commanding officer in similar circumstances decades ago. But Field Marshal Rico's mandate was clear: nobody still breathing gets left behind. Cursing, he ran back and grabbed Cox' other arm, sharing the burden. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the creatures had halved the distance between them already, and as he had done so many times on every hell-hole during his time in the military, he said a short prayer in his mind and prepared himself to go down fighting. He lifted the heavy gun in his one free hand and squeezed off a few aimless rounds at the advancing alien horde. And though he had a reputation for fearlessness in the field, he knew that his shaking, unsteady aim was not due the cumbersome weight of the weapon alone.

The screech of arachnid suddenly filled the air – a sound he knew all too well. Thousands of insectile cries emanating directly from the fissure, muting the aliens' hisses. At that moment, he knew the pooch was well and truly screwed.

Then something utterly unexpected happened; something so contrary to the situation and so unforeseeable that it beggared belief: the snarling alien hordes halted almost instantaneously when they heard the sounds of the arachnid, and turned to face the fissure in the south directly. Dalray had to force himself to ignore the impulse to stop and watch the phenomenon; he had been on too many bug infested worlds to know that when you heard that sound it was a bad idea to stay put.

They came spilling out of the fissure in legion: tens, then hundreds of frenzied arachnid. Insectile screeches filling the air over the scuttling sounds of their hard outer shells on the petrified basalt. The dark aliens reacted as vehemently, hissing and spitting at the insect legions, each species vitriolic with instinctual hatred, as if they sensed the danger they posed to each other. The lines were drawn for a battle that could not be rivalled in nature – two unstoppable forces that understood nothing but the need to protect their species and destroy the other. Despite every fibre of his being telling him to flee, Dalray slowed to a trot, and released his grip on Cox' arm before he stood completely still, engrossed in the spectacle and unaware that the survivors of his squad were still running for their lives. His eyes would bear witness to this conflict – the first human eyes ever to do so.

The aliens launched headlong into a mad dash. Coursing forwards like the panthers, they rushed into the arachnid, a hissing, seething onslaught of dark fury. The arachnid smashed into the alien wave, tossing them aside like ragdolls, two great and utterly deadly forces grinding against each other like a collision of continents. What they lacked in the nimbleness of the aliens, the bugs made up for in size, standing over three feet taller than a fully erect alien. But as so many species had discovered to their cost, the aliens' secret weapon soon began to have a devastating effect on the arachnid: the massive shearing jaws of the insectoids made short work of any alien unlucky enough to be caught up in them, but this apparent victory was their ultimate undoing, as the corrosive alien blood quickly dissolved the hard carapace of the arachnid and consumed the soft flesh within. Screeching bugs charged their own kind, frenzied in agony as their bodies dissolved. The initial slaughter of the aliens by the bugs was being turned on its head; the basalt plain was slick with the aliens' acid blood, collecting in the ruts formed by the long cooled lava formations. Arachnid charged blindly into the pools of molecular acid, which ate through the bottom of their legs, leaving them stumbling and slip-sliding over the rocks on their own liquefying flesh. Decimated by the initial attack, the aliens used the innate knowledge of their unique physiology to push the advantage and turn the tide. Impervious to their own blood, the remaining aliens rushed again at the struggling arachnid, nimbly scrambling over the large insectoids. The aliens probed at the hard outer shells of the bugs, lancing the large insect eyeballs with their inner pharyngeal jaws, which pistoned into the wet orbs easily, or tore into the arachnid's vulnerable joints where the soft innards were protected only by a thin, flexible membrane. With astonishing speed and brutality the aliens brought down the arachnid one by one, clustering over them like ants on prey.

Dalray felt the ground beneath his feet tremble, and knew it spelled more trouble – the bug weren't beat yet.

The huge tanker bug appeared over the cusp of the fissure, lumbering titanically into battle beside the rest of its species. The ground quaked with every footfall, and soon it had made up the distance to where the mutilated ruins of bugs and aliens lay.

The damn tanker bugs were problematic; their plasma posed a serious threat to orbiting spacecraft, but they had a far more nefarious weapon for use on the ground – Dalray could only guess what force made such an impact upon the tanker bugs that forced the evolutionary leap to create such a destructive and formidable natural defence mechanism. Above its eyes, two modified palps jetted separate volatile chemicals into a powerful stream, and as they mixed, they passed through another palp, where bio-electrical nodes created a spark which combusted the jet, becoming an organic napalm of sorts that burned so hot and fierce it could render flesh and bone to boiling jelly in moments. The jet of searing chemicals doused the alien horde as they continued taking the injured arachnid to pieces. The dark aliens shrieked lividly as they were consumed along side the bugs they were attacking. As the sun broke through a patch in the clouds back-lighting it, the silhouetted leviathan reared its formidable head and blared into the sky triumphantly – a deep hollow peal that sounded like steel girders buckling under great strain.

The surviving aliens scattered, their survival instinct kicking up a gear. At that moment Dalray knew just how dangerous the aliens truly were, even compared to the arachnid; for now they fled, escaping suicidal odds, in thrall to their own sense of self-preservation. That made them smart, both as a group and as individuals; that made them capable of assessing a situation and taking action based on their assessment, unlike the bug, which kept piling in blindly no matter what, commanded solely by the hidden brain bugs deep underground. That made the aliens a serious threat to be contended with – not only for him and his team, but for the arachnid too...

As the aliens made their escape, the bugs gave chase, and Dalray knew it was time to flee. He hauled a small radio beacon from his kit and hurled it to where the dead bodies of more than half his squad lay. There was no time for guilt to torment him – that would come later. Marking the location where they fell so they could be retrieved later was all he could do for them any more, and with that gesture that felt so hollow, he took to his heels to try and catch up with those who were left alive.


	8. Chapter 8: Quench

_**Note**: My, my, my. I have neglected what few fans I have of this fic, haven't I? 2 YEARS without updating? Yikes! Well, I was very proud of the action spectacular of Chapter 7 I have to say, but this chapter—nearly 22 thousand words of it—has the duty of pushing the story forward again unlike its predecessor, where the epic action sequences were the things I had been writing towards from the very start—literally the very images I had in mind when I set pen to paper on this fic (not that this chapter is devoid of thrills and spills). _

_ Yet pen and paper has been the biggest problem in terms of getting this story updated. See... I don't like typing, and this fic is being written the old fashioned way—longhand in notepads. I knew I had a monster chapter to type up and procrastinated over it for ages, even though it's been written for almost 2 years. I've been distracted, of course, with trying original fiction, but this tale needs finishing. I have it outlined, and that perhaps too is at fault for the delays, since I know how it ends—who lives, who dies, the twists and turns (Oh, the twists! another thing I've been working towards from page one) right up to the epilogue which crosses over into... well, you'll just have to wait and see (don't ask, I'll never tell! Mwah ha ha!)—I guess that I'm not exploring the story blindly any more; not finding where it'll take me, which is half the joy in writing. I already know how it ends. Add to that the release of Halo 4 last year and suddenly my story becomes anachronistic—an altered universe tale—since it begins where Halo 3 ends but won't be ending in the lead up to Halo 4. _

_ Still, upon re-reading much of the text, I encountered glaring errors and realised it needs revising to alter some awkward syntax, correct call-signs, rectify any unintended contradictions, nail down the geography (I've lost the map I drew to keep myself right) and re-trace characters I've lost track of along the way, not to mention grammar corrections, which is my weakest point—maybe I'll find a sympathetic beta one day—and errors in uploading, specifically chapter breaks that have mysteriously vanished for some reason or another. _

_ Happily, I'm excited about this fic again (partial credit also due to a few reviewers and PMs for telling me to get a move on), even if I have been a bit remiss in my duties in not updating for 25 months (again, YIKES!). So, by way of apology, I give you my next super-sized chapter. I hope you enjoy. _

_Beta Fett_

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X- X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Chapter 8: Quench

Sands' brow was knitted into a scowl and his cheeks flushed brightly betraying his anger at Sparks' insistence the route was safe; there was something moving around down that corridor that nobody could see, but everyone could hear the distinctive hissing breaths that Rain and Pharaoh had described. "I'm not crawling around the ducts, pal. No way, no how. You run into one of 'em in there and you're toast. History." he said firmly but quietly, his usually roving eyes fixed on the end of the dim corridor where it met its counterpart that ran parallel to it on the port side of the Sentry.

Sparks looked over his shoulder to the others waiting behind him. Desaille, Mboko and Garza all looked as scared as he felt. As scared as Sands must. "Listen," he began with genuine sympathy for everybody's fears, "the only way is forward. You know they've been locking down the bulkheads behind us. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to march down to the next one right into one of those things."

"Better to fight it where we can move than trapped in the vents, china," said Mboko, gesturing with a nod to Sands. "I'm with him on this."

"You plan on sticking around if we do run into one? You really think any of us do?" Sparks' retort was incredulous and curt.

"Roughnecks are a closer knit group than fleet." commented Garza in a bare whisper, looking Sparks and Desaille over with barely hidden contempt. His comment was cemented by the affirming nods of camaraderie from Sands and Mboko.

Desaille's mouth tightened as he glared at everybody. "Maybe now isn't a good time to get onto this!" he said, the ending syllable a quiet hiss that seemed to parody that all too deadly one emanating from the hidden source somewhere up ahead.

Sands felt his guts knot. It was all he could do to hold onto his last meal and keep the lid on his rising terror. His stomach felt like a cold, empty void from the start, and the trembling had started soon after, but he found focussing on the objective gave his wandering mind some respite from the hundred different scenarios of doom and destruction it would inevitably conjure up if he let it. Now, exposed and at a standstill, his imagination decided to up the ante by offering a little fleeting horror of having his face dissolved off after running into an alien while crawling around the ducts. What if...? It asked again and again. What if...? What if...? Each grim little poser punctuated by a new gruesome vision of his doom.

"Look, we know they were gathered near propulsion," Sparks said, trying to buoy up his argument. Sands gave a weary nod. "and we're not even midship yet..." he continued, pointing to the slate-grey plaque on the wall that listed the corridor and deck numbers with little white arrows guiding the way to other subsections.

"They got legs, man." reminded Garza dryly.

"We are wasting time!" Sparks flushed in anger for the first time. He nudged his way out of the small huddle and approached the sealed recycler hatch at the foot of the wall a few yards ahead before thumbing open the four sprung clasps that held the grille in place.

"What are you doing?" Sands questioned angrily as he followed.

Sparks got to his knees and peered into the hatch using a small flashlight he had pulled from the myriad of utensils in his tool belt. "I'm not arguing any more. Stay here if you want to, but I've got a job to do. And I've got the tools you're going to need to acquire those flame units from the mark fours. You find your balls and decide you want something useful to fight these things with, follow me." He bit down on the handle of the flashlight, leaving him speaking mostly in vowels as he peered into the duct. "Ih uhh ooo yoo."

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The captain led Michel Lambert, the Sentry's chief engineer, and his hand picked team to the ship's systems deck, where primary functions were controlled by the GUARDIAN computer core—the military precursor to the fledgling MOTHER system. As they walked Lambert beckoned individual engineers to him, pointing to areas on the hard-copy schematics in his hands and assigning each a task to carry out based on the strategy they had formulated to wrest control back from GUARDIAN and its bureaucratic masters back on Earth. In reality that meant no less than mutiny and the hijacking of a federation flagship. Treason. It was going to take watertight evidence of the callous corruption at the heart of the crumbling federation—which was so prepared to sacrifice all the souls aboard the ship and on the ground in order to fulfil some mysterious agenda—to keep the captain and his officers from the scaffold on the steps of the ministry of justice. It was a decision the captain didn't make lightly, but one he was prepared to see through to the end, whatever the conclusion may be—a medal or a rope. There was more souls in danger than his own, and though he knew he might go down in history as a traitor, he wasn't inclined to go down as a coward and an incompetent who let an alien species over-run his ship, or the the very real possibility that his name might go down in infamy as the captain of a vessel that returned home a derelict ghost ship—a modern day Marie Celeste. Or worse, another Ishimura.

"We'll have to hit guardian simultaneously, sir, so that it doesn't have time to compensate and start re-routing systems. If we let it get ahead of us we'll be chasing it forever trying to figure it out."

"Do what you have to, Chief. But I want this ship back in human hands as soon as possible. And I want communications back yesterday, for Christ's sake."

"With all respect, sir," Lambert said, quickly delegating another task to an accompanying engineer before continuing, "Communications is one of the flagged sections. We need a green light from the grunts before we send our guys in there."

"Don't worry about long range comms, Lambert; just get me talking to the men on the ground." He checked his wristwatch, "They've been cut off for nearly twenty-nine hours now and the clock is still ticking."

"Yes, Sir."

As they rounded the corner to the GUARDIAN core they were confronted by Eben standing stolidly at the entrance, flanked by two junior officers and Deveaux, the captain's first officer. All were armed with stun batons that buzzed and crackled with static, the junior officers each also holding a pair of titanium shackles from the brig. Eben had that infuriating look of superiority to him again. The captain and his trailing tail of engineers came to a halt as Deveaux stepped forward to address his commanding officer. "Captain." The executive officer's usually stiff posture seemed somewhat deflated now, his face betraying the deep contrition of having to be the man to stand in the captain's way.

"What is the meaning of this?" The captain pointed to the weapons they carried, his mind furiously trying to remember those disarming techniques he had learned through all those mandatory hand-to-hand refresher courses he had taken over the years if he couldn't talk his way out of the fix.

"Sir, your course of action is contrary to our orders. And by not trying to stop you it could be surmised that I was implicit with your decision which I would like to go on record as saying I resolutely do not condone."

The captain stood nonplussed for a moment; even for Forrest Deveaux, who held that stiff, antiquated view of naval regulations and discipline, that answer was particularly ascetic and formal. So Deveaux wasn't prepared to hang for the captain, that seemed obvious. But there was a subtext to the answer, he was sure of it. The X.O., he hoped, was asking for a way out—a way for his record to stay untarnished but to have no further involvement in the developing situation he was in. Hell, he was still young, and in quieter, less formal, meetings Deveaux had expressed his wish to command his own vessel one day. His self-preservation was understandable. Stubborn and badly timed, but understandable. Their working relationship had always been a little cold, and no real prospect of friendship existed between the two men, but he and the X.O. respected each other as (competent) officers must do, and both knew the meaning of honour, even if they each had different interpretations of it. The captain decided gamble and to take the branch he hoped he was being offered. "Your objections are noted, executive officer Deveaux. They will be noted in my log. In the mean time I am relieving you of your post. You will be confined to quarters for the mean time, do you understand?"

A tense moment passed with the captain thinking he had read Deveaux's intentions all wrong. Thankfully, after a moment, the X.O. saluted dutifully and stepped aside after dropping his baton to the floor. "Yes, sir."

"What about you two?" asked the captain, peering past Deveaux to the junior officers that flanked Eben. "Where do your loyalties lie?"

The taller of the two, skinny and balding, holstered his baton and saluted. "With ship and captain, captain. We were simply acting under orders from the executive officer, sir."

Deveaux nodded a silent affirmative. The remaining junior officer echoed the sentiment after a fleeting moment of indecision, holstering his weapon and joining the X.O.

Only Eben stood in their path now, that smirk unfaded despite his support leaving him hanging in the wind. The captain had a feeling that dealing with him—_IT_, he reminded himself—would not be so easy.

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Sparks grunted and puffed in the cramped space, noting with grim humour that the duct he was crawling in must be about the same dimensions as the boxes he had seen many a serviceman repatriated in during his time in the service. He squirmed up to the grille where the light leaked through from the corridor beyond and pressed his face against the lattice, peering awkwardly left and right. The corridor looked empty, and he estimated that they were now only twenty metres from cargo one.

"How's it look?" Sands grunted as he tried to negotiate the bend Sparks had made look a lot easier just moments before.

"Ook eah." Sparks let the little flashlight fall from his mouth."Looks clear," he repeated. He hoped his tone sounded earnest; in truth he couldn't see very far in either direction. With more shimmying and squirming he managed to work his right hand up beside him bearing a screwdriver. He slid the shaft through the gaps in the lattice, pushing the sprung clasps from behind where they overlapped the grille. Each went with a thin metallic clunk that seemed to ring loudly in the duct, making Sparks grimace every time. He hooked a finger into the lattice to take the weight and pushed gingerly. The light aluminium grille came away quietly and, for a mercy, without rattling to the floor. He shimmied forward again, peering out into the corridor proper. "Yeah, all clear," he murmured, more assuring himself than those behind. After gingerly placing the grille on the floor he used the freed arm to lever himself from the duct and got quickly to his feet, trying to remain vigilant, eyes searching, ears listening intently. Only then did he realise just how noisy their crawl through the ducts must have been—every shuffle and grunt from the passage sounded like it had been amplified by a megaphone.

Sands' head suddenly appeared at the mouth of the duct, fingers curling around the cusp, both of his hands trapped under the weight of his body. Sparks couldn't stop the gruff snort of amusement that escaped him—Sands looked like he was doing a bad impression of a tyrannosaurus-rex, but he apparently didn't see the funny side. "Yeah, laugh. Don't help. That's great. Only both of my goddamn arms are going to sleep."

Sparks stepped forward without trying to suppress his mirth and grabbed Sands' head, pulling him from the duct like a bizarre birthing rite. His smile died as he thought of those other bizarre births aboard ship not so long ago...

Sands got to his feet, flexing his hands into fists, willing blood to return to them and banish the pins and needles. Sparks snapped up the little flashlight again and started off alone in the direction of cargo one, leaving Sands to help Garza out, each man assisting the one behind until all five men were on their feet again and assembling at the large bulkhead stencilled with the large letters: CARGO ONE.

The bottom deck of the Sentry was now as quiet as a mausoleum. No constant hum of the engines, no clicking relays. No voices. Only the barest whisper of the air recycler. Sands became aware of the sound of his blood rapidly pumping in his ears, and wondered if anybody else could actually hear their own heartbeat.

"C'mon," whispered Sparks, dialling in the access code on the numerical touch-pad. There was another loud clunk, and the hermetically sealed bulkheads suddenly parted from each other an inch, leaving a gap in the middle that sucked air into the dark space beyond with an audible hiss. Everybody started at the sound, even Sparks who had expected it. "It's cool, guys; it's just a shift in pressure is all." The doors parted, each bulkhead sliding with a mechanical groan into their recesses.

The over head lights flickered to life revealing the room to them. The space of cargo one seemed cavernous, extending forwards for one hundred metres and upwards for twenty-five. Within, stacked from floor to ceiling, lay crates and boxes of all shapes and sizes filled with the various supplies a self-reliant starship on a long sortie would need, and more. A single forlorn power loader painted in yellow and black DANGER! slashes stood abandoned at the food stores row in its final pose, one forked arm pointed to the ceiling, the other almost appearing to laze at its side in a lonely tableaux. Above, suspended from its tracks and painted in the same yellow and black slashes, loomed the huge grasping claw of the heavy duty crane—an instrument capable of surprisingly delicate and fine stowing, given its forbidding appearance. Hanging from the ceiling itself was a tangled maze of air ducts, coolant tubes, and waste water pipes that the ship designers hadn't deigned to try to conceal running dutifully to the reclamation plant.

The wall to their far left seemed more ordered than the rest, consisting of seven rows of large steel cubes stacked three high. Each of these containers was painted olive drab and looked big enough for for three men to stand abreast of each other at full height. Each was stencilled with a three digit number, though they had been stacked in no discernible order. "The mark fours are bound to be a thing of beauty to watch in the field, huh?" asked Sparks, beckoning the others to follow as he approached the stack.

"Wouldn't know." Sands' answer was curt. "They were mothballed for review years ago. Something to do with the old man. We don't know why. Might have saved a lot of lives if we could still use 'em in the field."

The marauder units were twelve-foot tall walking battle platforms armed with myriad bug-busting technology. A pilot housed within the mech suit could operate for days at a time thanks to a full life support suite—even the need for sustenance could be met by the application of a simple drip feed that supplied the body with a cocktail of nutrients, acids, proteins and sugars which could belay the necessity for food, at least temporarily. It was a brilliant stroke of forethought by the thinkers and movers of the E-MIT, since marauders inserted into bug-strongholds could be cut off from relief and re-supply for anywhere from a day to a week. Or, if you believed the rumour about the old man, twelve days. For years now some kind of hidden stigma had affected the viability of the suits—something that Field Marshal Rico was at the centre of; something which only the higher echelons knew about, and guarded zealously. The old man had never set foot in a unit for over ten years now, and had campaigned vociferously to have them removed from the service altogether. Perhaps due to the E-MIT footing the colossal price tag attached to the marauder programme, his campaign had failed, but in the absence of any hard facts a superstitious fear had blotted the reputation of the marauders as the ultimate bug-busting tech. Most, like these twenty one sleeping giants upon the Sentry, were stowed away in dark cargo holds all but forgotten.

Sparks led the way through the maze of supplies to the marauder stacks. Each crate contained a single suit, plus a suite of spare parts for repairs. He stopped by a crate marked 578 and thumbed a scanner to release the mag-locks. The front of the case slid forwards four inches before sliding aside.

"All this talk of the mark fours and I just realised I never saw one in person," remarked Mboko as the crate's contents were revealed. Before them was a confusing mish-mash of scratched and dented olive drab armoured plates nobody could make head nor tail of that left everybody—except perhaps Sparks, who never really seemed taken aback by anything—feeling utterly underwhelmed.

"That's it?" Sands said sourly, "I thought these things were supposed to bitchin' bad?"

Sparks smiled wryly, unbuckling his tool belt. He handed the tools to Desaille and pressed a button on the miniature console mounted just inside the crate. "You're not getting the full picture yet." He pulled the wireless console from its dock, dialling in commands as he back-pedalled a few steps away from the crate. The contents began to slide forward on pneumatic runners, fully revealing that mish-mash of armour plates.

The suit was curled into a position that was almost fetal, its knees drawn up to its chest, arms folded neatly at its sides. Even tucked up like this it was so big that it must have taken every inch of room within its crate.

Sparks prodded more buttons on the console in his hands, running start-up sequences and sub-routines. An electrical whine like charging dynamos, whirring servos, clicking relays—the metal beast had come to life as it ran diagnostics and calibration procedures for the first time in years. Sparks placed the console back in its dock within the crate and slipped around the back of the suit. Unseen by the others, he climbed into the cockpit, slipping his arms and legs into the suit's extremities and feeling the sensor rods probing him as they set their negative feedback thresholds, allowing the machine to mimic his movements, so that walking in the mech was as easy as a stroll in the park. The tech had come a long way since its advent and made even the most up to date power loaders look slow and cumbersome. He waited for the heads-up display before his eyes to give all start-up systems the green light. Since climbing in he felt like his centre of balance was way off, and he had a stark moment of doubt that the moment he moved the whole thing would topple backwards. In his head he knew that his centre of gravity and the suit's were totally different, and he trusted enough in his sense of logic to be confident that he wouldn't end up on his back. He plucked up the courage and willed his body to rise.

Nothing. Only a flashing warning on the HUD that the suit was not sealed. Below the warning scrolled the words: VOICE COMMAND ASSUMED. SECURE COMBATANT? Y/N? Sparks answered the query like an unsure child, knowing the rookie error he had made, "Yes?" He immediately felt the padded plates of the inner hull slide into place behind him, starting at the base of his spine and working upwards, quickly adjusting to his body shape. He felt tightly squeezed but comfortable as the last one came to rest behind his head and the outer armour shell slid into place, sealing him in. A dozen more warnings suddenly scrolled down the left hand side of the HUD informing him that this life support system and that life support system had not been activated. Feeling a little out of his depth now—after all, he had never piloted a marauder—he answered yes to every query that popped up on the HUD. This only seemed to make more warnings pop up. "I always thought they would be bigger," he heard Mboko remark clearly in his ear through the suit's comms. He smiled. You want bigger? he thought and willed his body to stand.

The whole mech suddenly lurched effortlessly upwards with a robotic drone. He watched, still grinning as everybody in his HUD scrambled backwards in fright. "Sorry!" he said, though his tone was gleeful and not the least sorrowful at all.

Sands, recovered now from his fright, approached the twelve-foot tall metal giant that towered over him. He smiled now, fully appreciating its scale. "Bad ass!" he murmured.

"The mark ones _were_ bigger," said Sparks, his voice tinny over the suit's external speakers as he countered Mboko's earlier remark. "They were big clunky things that relied on boosters to get around the battlefield."

"They flew?" asked Mboko incredulously.

"More like bounced; marks one and two were capable of short booster-assisted leaps rather than fully sustained flight—but only because the pedi-drives were so damn slow. They solved the coil problem with the mark threes so that they didn't shake to pieces when walking at more than a couple of miles an hour, though the threes retained the boosters. These things—the fours—refined the pedi-drive further, and the redesign removed the booster to make them easier to mass-produce and more cost-effective. Even these things are out-dated now; I heard they're shipping sixes to Pandora next year."

One of the metal clad arms suddenly reached forwards to full extension before lowering slightly, and the whole mech lowered to a squat. Desaille immediately got to work on the arm which, Sands realised after a few moments of being so entranced by the steel beast, housed the flame unit they were here for."You seem to know a lot about these things," said Sands, hovering around Desaille, trying to figure out how he could be useful but mainly getting in the way.

"I oughta. Spent ten years building them on Corsica prime before I joined the service," Sparks' tinny voice died away towards the end of the sentence, and a few moments later he reappeared in the flesh from behind the mech. "That's why I'm here," he finished, fishing a tool from his belt that now hung around Desaille's waist and setting to work with the assuredness of experience. "We'll need to chop the fuel lines when we strip the tank out, and jury-rig something so your guys can carry it on their backs. But it ain't going to be a picnic. With a full tank it's going to be damn heavy. And remember: quinitricetyline isn't jellied like napalm; it's gonna stay liquid—a little more viscous than water—so it's going to slosh around in the tank and throw your weight off if you're moving around too much."

After a moment Garza, who had scarcely spoken a word since arriving on the bottom deck out of sheer paranoia, said: "Maybe we have one man carry the tank and another torch the nasties, yeah?"

Sparks, Desaille and Sands all exchanged a glance, quietly impressed and all in agreement that it seemed a pretty viable idea. "You volunteering?" asked Sands dryly.

"You mean would I rather be the man at the back with the tank, or at the front with the flamer? I'll take the back, my friend."

Sands had no real counter, so only said: "Sounds like a plan to me," as he hovered around Sparks and Desaille again.

"Good," said Sparks, lifting away the first armoured plate with Desaille and Mboko's help, "Let's do it."

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The sound of water trickling down the craggy walls and dripping to the rocky ground echoed within the vast cave network. Here and there in the darkness hisses broke the maddening monotony of the drip, drip, drip. Dh'anha'thu stirred from the pit of semi-consciousness into this cold pit of darkness, unable to move and weary like he had never thought possible. His visor had been ripped away, leaving his tough skin welted and tender around the seal points, and without it supplying him the nitrogen-rich mix he found the air thin and breathing laborious. His vision too was impaired with the loss of the visor, leaving him only to see in the yautja's natural infra-red spectrum. He could hear the hard meat stalk the darkness around him, but seeing them unaided was tricky against the cool blue and black of the cave.

The air hung with the acrid taint of hard meat blood and the distinct sour pheromone odour of a dying hard meat queen; they were smells of a hunt gone wrong—when a queen was too badly injured to be of any further use to the nest, or a yautja seeding party. The dying queen's pheromones would activate an evolutionary adaptation within her clutch of eggs, triggering a chemical signal within the clutch that would begin the process of forming breeding fetal forms—crawlers which held within them the embryos of what would eventually grow to become future queens once safely implanted in a host.

Before him the eggs lay, each branded with distinct yautja markings. These were processed eggs, brought here for controlled dispersal but gathered up by the drones from the various seedings and brought to this dark place in the womb of the world at her silent behest. As for the fearsome hard meat queen herself, he could not see her in the murk, but he could hear the deep hissing breaths that laboured to stave off her death.

His memories coalesced together again from the fragments left by his waking:

...his ship had taken a direct hit from an unknown source and had crashed hard into the ground...

...saved from total annihilation by the heroic deeds of the leader...

...many hunt brothers had burned alive...

...many hard meat had escaped from the crashed seeder...

...he and J'ehna'han had given chase to the fleeing queen...

...despite her injuries and their own the chase had become a long rampage through forest until the queen had run blindly into a swamp and cornered herself.

Dh'anha'thu and J'ehna'han had however been expertly bluffed. The queen reeled on them, charging headlong into the drowned and dead trees where both hunt brothers believed themselves out of harm's way. The sodden, rotten trunks crumbled easily, throwing the hunters into the stagnant water when the tree toppled and their perch had collapsed. Dh'anha'thu was on his feet quickly, bellowing in outrage, and even as the queen charged him he searched the mire for his hunt brother, his eyes seeing only an arm and a leg bobbing on the filthy water under the fallen tree. Broken. Dead.

Searing pain ripped down the flesh by his spine, and when he wheeled around he saw the group of drones that had been giving chase had finally cornered him. The leading drone, with his blood still fresh on its talons lunged at him again, arms outstretched. Its claws hooked around his mask and, as he used the heat meat's own impetus to hurl it away behind him, the mask came tearing off his skin still in its clutches with a painful gaseous POP! as the seals failed and left his face bruised and welted.

Cursing himself for giving chase to the queen with such singular focus and purpose as to ignore all other dangers, he threw himself sideways, out of the path of the lunging drones, which crashed onto the fallen tree in a cacophony of sodden cracks and vehement screeches. Before he could turn to finish them, long needle fingers curled around his waist and plucked him from the morass, bringing him to bear, face-to-face, with the livid sneer of the alien queen. Her vice grip squeezed all the air from his lungs, constricting so tight he couldn't pull another breath. His arms, trapped against his body in her grip became weak, and what fight was left in him began to drain away. His eyes rolled up in his head as the black tendrils of darkness crept in from the periphery of his vision, consuming all until only the queen's horrific grimace remained, until that too faded into nothingness.

And here he had awoke. Hurting, senseless, almost blind in the freezing darkness, but coming to realise the true purpose the queen had kept him alive—it would be her perfect vengeance; the only price a yautja would not willingly pay for a successful hunt: his body was to be used to disseminate the species, to host an embryonic hard meat within him until it was ready to hatch. It was a shameful, unworthy fate meant only for low beasts and fell creatures.

The glistening secretions binding him to the cave wall had little to no give in them when he struggled against them. The hard meat passed by him in the gloom, at the verges of his vision like hissing phantoms as they delicately tended the eggs that littered the uneven surface of the cave floor.

Movement.

In the egg before him, something stirring within. He railed against his bindings as wet squelches and moist sucking sounds began to emanate from the leathery ovum. The top segments folded outwards like the petals of a delicate flower in bloom. Something writhed beneath a milky-white membrane and sucked again at the air. Long, slender digits eased their way from within, hooking over the cusp of the folded petals. The crawler pulled itself from the peaceful sanctuary of its egg with singular instinctual purpose...

Dh'anha'thu struggled harder against his bonds as the crawler came into full sight. The mysterious reaction to the dying queen's pheromones had done its work well, for this crawler emerged different from most others; its body was nearly a quarter bigger again than a normal crawler, its back covered in thick, tough plates and hard, sharp spines—a body altogether tougher and more resilient than a mere drone carrier, since the embryo it now housed had become far more precious.

It began creeping towards him at a torturous, leisurely pace over the other eggs and damp rocky floor. Its cold, wet flesh pressed up against his leg as it began climbing its way up his body to deposit its precious seed, and the hunter hauled against his binds so hard that he felt muscles and sinews snap and detach from bone, but they held firm. Pain and exhaustion finally finished his efforts.

The crawler hooked its slender digits around his head as a slimy proboscis covered in dangling arcs and beads of mucus slid out from within its body and forced its way down his gullet, violating his body and mind. A dark dreaminess overcame him, and the hunter felt the world fall away around him. He slipped into blackness and dreams of drowning in blood.

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"Stand aside, Eben," the captain ordered, trying to sound calm. Somehow the solidarity Eben showed with the GUARDIAN computer core—the sentry's brain and nervous system, for all intents an purposes—was at once both intriguing and infuriating. After all, both the synthetic humanoid and the computer system were created to assist mankind, not hinder them. Yet here Eben stood, defiantly blocking the doorway to GUARDIAN, his eyes shifting endlessly from the captain to the engineers behind him, soaking up data, calculating odds, formulating strategies.

"I know you are aware of the orders from command, Captain. I thought they were quite clear," said the synthetic, "by allowing you access to guardian I would be violating my orders and allowing you to endanger the crew, the ship and the alien species."

"The crew and the ship ARE endangered, Eben! Those creatures running loose on my vessel are a threat to everything!" the captain spat, "And the lives of my crew mean more to me than the ship or my orders!"

"The orders are irrefutable."

Before the captain could reply, Lambert spoke: "Then you're conflicted, Eben. As a synthetic you have three tenets to obey that no orders from command can override: Asimov's laws. And by barring the way you're in contradiction of the first two."

Eben's ever shifting eyes finally halted on Lambert. The effect was a little unnerving. "Were that the case would not guardian have to conform to these tenets, Chief Lambert?"

The engineer paused to collect his thoughts for a moment, clearly disturbed by Eben's words and scrutiny. "It would, Eben; those are dictated by the laws of robotics. You cannot allow a human being to come to harm through inaction, and you must obey us except where it conflicts with the first order."

Unsurprisingly, Eben seemed unconvinced and turned his unsettling scrutiny on the captain. "I am not your enemy, Captain; my orders come from higher in the chain of command than any person aboard this vessel can supersede. May I add that by allowing you and your crew full access to the ship I would be allowing you to endanger yourselves. As long as the aft of the ship is sealed, you and your... humans... are the safest I can make you, aside from placing you all in hyper-sleep."

"And what about those on the ground?" asked the captain, "what about all the lives that you and guardian and all those soulless bastards back at command are so prepared to abandon?"

"There is no evidence that the rescue team are in direct or imminent danger." Eben's voice was cool and measured.

The captain exploded into fury, grabbing the lapels of the flight suit that Eben wore and hauling the synthetic face-to-face with him. Eben never fluttered an eyelid, enraging the captain even more. "That's because we've had no contact with them for over a day now, goddammit! You know the contents of my report, you know what they could be facing down there!"

Without warning the taller of the junior officers, who just moments ago had backed Eben at Deveaux's orders, lurched at the synthetic, knocking the stun baton out of Eben's grip with his own. Eben broke the captain's grip and swiftly sidestepped another strike as the junior tried to catch him with a back swing. With expert aim and inhuman reflexes Eben jabbed at the nerve cluster below the armpit of the junior's extended arm with merely the tips of his left index and middle fingers. Before he had even hit the floor the junior officer was unconscious and Eben clasped his hands behind his back, calmly facing the captain again.

"So much for Asimov's laws." murmured one of Lambert's techs somewhere behind the captain.

"He is quite alive, ensign," Eben addressed the rear of the gathering, "and will suffer no more than some light bruising. I would refer you to the third law of robotics if you believe my actions were inappropriate."

"Eben," the captain's voice was a near growl now, "I order you—I ORDER you to stand down. Stand down, Eben."

The synthetic merely shook his head. "The command structure aboard this vessel is irrelevant now, Captain. It would be best if we let guardian guide us all home."

Without another word to Eben, the captain turned to Lambert and his team. "I'm out of patience, we're out of time and flat out of options."

"Captain, please don't do anything rash." said Eben. There was not even a hint of entreaty within his plea; it was a statement imbued with expectation more than anything else.

Ignoring him, the captain turned and appealed to everyone: "If we're in for a ducat, we're in for a dollar. For everybody." Lambert nodded silently in understanding, and a few of his techs looked apprehensively at the comatose junior officer lying on the floor beside where Eben stood, correctly guessing what was expected of them next. The captain crouched and picked up the stun rod that had been knocked from Eben's hand.

"My systems are shielded, Captain. The baton would be quite ineffective."

The captain wheeled around, wielding the stun rod as a club. Eben foresaw the move, ducking under and sidestepping it easily, still with his hands clasped behind his back, preparing to strike at the same nerve cluster that had so easily incapacitated his first attacker. Lambert had prepared for that eventuality from the start and lunged to grab Eben's arms. The synthetic broke Lambert's clumsy grip, and his fingers struck squarely on the engineer's solar plexus, knocking all the wind out of him so hard that he collapsed vomiting. With his other arm Eben simultaneously deflected the captain's second attempted blow and stamped his foot into the inside crook of the captain's knee, who went down with a howled curse.

A tech lunged forward from the rear but stumbled awkwardly over Lambert and the captain as they went down in near unison. As the tech floundered, Eben struck him open-palmed behind the ear with precisely judged force. The tech's lights went out like a switch had been thrown and he went sprawling, his full weight landing atop the captain who was struggling to get to his feet again. More techs surged forwards trying to rush Eben and overwhelm him but they toppled like dominoes, tripping over those on the floor, their inchoate attack halted before it had a chance to begin by a few choice blows and minimal use of force by the synthetic.

Beneath the crush the captain cursed and looked up to face Eben scowling, burning with anger. The face that looked down on him was almost as angelically serene as a renaissance Madonna.

"Please, Captain," again, that insincere sincerity, "this is fruitless-" Eben's face suddenly froze, his eyes peering off into the middle distance in an expression that seemed numb and startled at the same time. The captain felt something lukewarm drizzle his face like a summer shower. The synthetic's legs suddenly buckled, and Eben keeled over sideways, spraying milky-white conduction fluid—the synthetic form of blood plasma and lymph—from a gaping wound in the back of his head.

The other junior rating stood directly behind Eben, clutching his own baton. It was misshapen and spitting sparks angrily, nearly broken clean in two by the sheer force of the blow it delivered. "Damn glorified toaster."

The captain looked at the ragged flap of tissue and matted hair that had been torn from Eben's scalp, feeling dizzying nausea rising in him. He vaguely heard Lambert finally manage to draw much needed full, deep breaths as the others got to their feet, relieving the crush. Someone offered him a helping hand up, but he still couldn't take his eyes from the gruesome sight of the back of Eben's head. When he finally did look up it was the junior rating who had finished Eben that met his gaze, looking exalted and worried at the same time. "Good work, son," puffed the captain, as he rose stiffly.

"Choi, Sir."

"Good work, Choi."

Choi's face set now with confidence and righteous determination. His dark hair and the harsh overhead lights which made dark shadows of the features of his angular face made him look like a hood in a noir book.

"Son of a bitch!" spat Lambert, rubbing his chest and grimacing with pain, "what happened to 'do no harm'?"

"Don't take it personally," said the captain, placing a grateful hand on Lambert's shoulder, "I think the blow was meant for me."

"Doesn't make it hurt any less," grumbled the engineering chief.

The captain let Lambert gripe as he approached Deveaux. The X.O. looked embarrassed and couldn't meet the captain's eyes when he approached. "Your concerns have been noted, Forrest. I want you to dispose of that," he cocked a thumb over his shoulder to where Eben lay, "and confine yourself to your cabin; I can't have you standing in my way... in any sense of the expression."

Deveaux flushed almost purple with humiliation. Whether it was true integrity or sheer yellow cowardice that compelled the ship's X.O. to act in his own interests instead of ship and crew no longer mattered to the captain, only that it not happen again.

The icy atmosphere and sense of mistrust was almost palpable between them now as the disgraced officer shuffled by, trying to maintain a semblance of dignity. Eben had been a synthetic, and the idea that Deveaux had been prepared to leave the sentry to the mercy of a mere collection of macrochips and a few lines of binary code was not so unexpected; that he would collude with Eben in his own interests was—he was supposed to be a leader, a man the ship's crew were supposed to be able to look up to, but his actions had proved he would rather look after his own, to potentially conspire with the onboard artificial intelligences than risk his neck for anybody else. Already there were murmurs; Judas and Jonas being the most popular among the crew as Deveaux quietly set about moving Eben with the help of Choi. He passed the group of techs in silence, which they returned frostily.

"Let's get this ship back in human hands, people," the captain quipped, trying to sound determined and enthusiastic, "When we're done I don't want guardian to be able to do so much as turn on a light bulb."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X- 

Sparks and Desaille were at work on their third marauder now, having made short work of stripping the flame throwers from the previous two. Sands, Mboko and Garza were busy at work refitting the cut down fuel lines to the tanks and fitting the harnesses that Sparks had improvised to allow a man to carry the heavy fuel tank on his back.

"Three ain't gonna be enough," Sands remarked as Mboko helped him shoulder the a tank onto his back to test the weight.

Sparks shot him an irritated look, borne more out of frustration at the stubborn bolts he was trying to shift than Sands' remark. "The five of us can't carry one each. We're already pushing it at three."

The lights within cargo one suddenly and unexpectedly blinked out, and Sparks' usually measured and calm voice was the first and loudest to ring out in the darkness: "What the goddamn hell?!" he cursed, his frustration more evident than ever.

Dim battery powered back-up lights glowed gently into being, but their light was wan and only illuminated shallow pools every ten meters around the perimeter of the cavernous space, and only threatened to make Sparks' task all the more difficult.

In cargo one the only sounds, besides those of their efforts, had been the gentle background drone of the air recycler swapping out the carbon dioxide for new—if not exactly fresh—air. They had all become accustomed to the drone that they barely noticed it, and it only registered to them again when the small turbines suddenly dropped lower and lower in pitch, as if winding down, before stopping altogether.

Sparks downed his tools and took a few steps forward, until he stood directly underneath the nearest air vent in that tangle of pipes, tubes and ducts twenty-five meters above him. He stood motionless beneath the vent, right arm held above his head, palm up, trying to feel the gentle waft of recycled air. "There's something up with life support," he said apprehensively, "the air's stopped."

"What you mean it stopped?" asked Garza, getting to his feet in what he was loath to admit was a fearful and almost involuntary impulse; his greatest fear since childhood had been suffocation or drowning, and Sparks remark had shot the nerve that kept the lid on that nightmare and his adult rationality, striking that primal place in his mind where childhood bogeymen once reigned, crafting night terrors of being buried alive. "What you mean it stopped?!" he barked again, panic rising.

Sparks fixed him with a look. "Relax. I'm sure it's part of the master plan. The tech team are probably having to take the ship back system by system. It shouldn't last long."

Even before Sparks had finished the sentence a strange giddiness overcame all of the men standing in cargo one; butterflies in the tummy, and a sensations of lightness, of a physical weight lifted. Only when Mboko watched one of the spanners he had set aside while fitting a fuel line start to rise from the floor and float gently into the air did he realise the sensation was very real, and no trick of the mind. "This can't be good," he said with rising alarm when he too began to float.

"The artificial gravity," Sparks observed with real worry for the first time, "they shut down the gravity systems!"

Sands chuckled to himself in spite of it all; he had experienced zero-g plenty when strapped into the seat of a free-falling drop ship, but this was the first time he had ever experienced it while untethered in any way. He smiled nervously as the butterflies rose in his tummy—a unique, but not unpleasant, vibe. "So what?" he commented

The hundreds, perhaps thousands, of crates, boxes and containers of all shapes and sizes within cargo one, ranging from the size of a footlocker to the ten-foot cubed marauder containers began to float freely now, nudging each other gently; some drifted away gently with little-to-no force, others gently tumbling over and over like a graceful aerial dance. The marauder stacks were airborne now, silently approaching where the men tried with varying degrees of success, from ungainly to awkward, to find a form of locomotion through the air to avoid them.

"Careful," Sparks advised, nodding to where the stack of cubes crept upon the Desaille and the others. It was a strange sight, three of the cubes with their decanted mechs still anchored to the runners in a partial state of disassembly, gliding gracefully and silently, "the weight of all this stuff obviously isn't an issue right now, but impetus is; try not to touch anything, or you'll risk turning this place into one big meat grinder," he finished, trying to avoid a five-hundred pound ration case that was rising to meet him like a feather on an updraft. As an afterthought he added: "And don't get caught under anything when the system reactivates, or it's adiós muchachos."

A sealed marauder cube nudged Mboko who, heeding Sparks warning, just let it carry him away gently. He clung to it as if it were a life boat in calm seas and smiled to himself. Despite the potential danger posed, there was an inherent beauty in experiencing zero-g like this.

Sands' felt something brush gently against the nape of his neck, his hand automatically swatting at whatever it was like a pesky bug. There was a sudden moist sensation on the back of his hands and mingling through the hair on the back of his head, adding to the slew of oddness he was already experiencing. When he looked at the hand it was covered in a vile looking brownish liquid he recognised straight away, and a cold void replaced the butterflies in his stomach instantaneously. "Help me!" he uttered, "Help me, it's leaking!"

Sparks twisted around to see perfect little globes of quinitricetyline ooze out of the fuel tank on Sands' back where the flamer hose has been cut down and reattached. Globules of the yellow-brown super-combustible liquid floated freely around Sands, soaking into his fatigues and hair. In his panic Sands had sent himself into a weightless tumble, thrashing endlessly in futility as more and more of the fuel seeped from the tank, disorienting him and screwing his terror down deeper.

One of the overhead air ducts began to rattle and clang violently, almost shaking loose from the brackets that held them in place. The dread sound of livid alien screeches and feral hisses followed shortly after, and everybody knew the situation had gone from bad to all out clusterfuck. The rattling moved though the vents inexorably towards where all five men floated as helpless as motes of dust, the hidden creature within as as confused and disorientated as they were.

Mboko gently—ever so gently—nudged himself away from the marauder cube he clung to, aiming his body for the second flame unit which, unlike the one Sands now bore, hadn't been cut down or jury rigged yet. The heavy tank and burner weren't an issue in zero-g, and when he grasped the bulky burner it felt good to have something to be able to use against the bastard alien that wasn't a tazer. His fingers searched for a trigger instinctively, though after a moment he recalled Sparks telling them there was no trigger; the activator was a steel cable that linked into the marauder's solenoid which had to be cut when it had been disconnected. He turned the ungainly weapon over, finding the braid of high tensile steel wire and wrapped it around his fist.

The hidden alien was directly above Sparks now, only a few feet from a vent. Sparks' looked helpless and lost, eyes darting from Sands, flailing and tumbling, yelling in fear, to the vent where black, slender fingers now slid into the grate. The grate buckled with a metallic shriek and spiralled away into the dimness, mangled. A horrendously dark and eyeless head, wearing a loathsome grimace peered down at him, the first time Sparks had actually seen the alien face to face. Somehow it knew he was there. The creature's thin lips curled into a hateful sneer, its instinctual urge to destroy flooding every fibre of its being. It launched itself from the duct straight at him. Sparks grabbed the nearest thing to hand—a ration case— and threw it with all his strength. The steel case caught the monster squarely in the face and send it tumbling backwards through the air where it hit one, two, three other cargo cases, leaving them spinning like tops. The alien snarled and hissed at him, clambering over weightless boxes to get to him, searching for any kind of purchase. Its sneer and guttural hisses made Garza's blood turn to ice water in his veins, the bogeyman of his childhood nightmares, that thing that lurked under the bed to clutch at your ankles in the darkness, the monster in the closet, all made flesh before his eyes. He turned flailing awkwardly and tried to flee for the exit, but in doing so managed to draw its attention from Sparks. That smooth eyeless head, those needle teeth turned to face him now, and he watched in black terror as the creature gripped a crate and drew its body into a crouch before kicking off it towards another that hovered near the exit. It landed deftly, as lithe as a cat atop its target. Already it had adapted to using the environment to convey itself where it wanted to be, even in zero-gravity. At that moment Garza knew their numbers had come up; from its position it could spring on any one of its human prey. The bogeyman had come to collect.

Again it crouched and kicked off. The crate slammed hard into the wall giving it a solid surface that it used to its full advantage. It sprung forwards at full force, talons clawing at the air, jaws ready to strip flesh from bone.

Sparks watched it go for Garza and desperately tried lobbing another crate at it but was too wide of the mark. Garza grabbed the nearest crate, using like a shield it to take the impact as the alien crashed into him. They tumbled, weightless, together, the terrified human trooper facing the alien creature, just out of its reach. Its inner jaws snapped from its mouth, lancing at his head, its tail and claws splitting the air, only a flimsy little crate between him and death incarnate. His back slammed into something hard—wall, floor, ceiling, he couldn't tell—and suddenly felt hot agony as the creature's talons buried themselves in the flesh of each arm. He could smell its ammonia breath, feel its cold grip, hear the start of a guttural hiss. His mind cried out in silent prayer as he awaited the death stroke...

Mboko reared the flamethrower at the beast as it leapt for Garza, but its leap was so nimble and quick that he was forced to make a difficult turn in the zero-gravity. When Garza and the alien hit the floor together he steadied his hand again, training the nozzle at the creature, praying that Garza could escape its clutches for just a moment and give him a clear shot to roast the thing alive.

Sparks saw what was about to happen and tried to scream for Mboko to stop, but the sound arrested in his throat when he felt the perfect spheres of burner fuel dapple onto his skin and flight suit. Sands still wrestled with the flamer and tank, trying to free himself of the tightly cinched straps over his shoulders. More and more little globules of brown-yellow liquid leaking, chains of flammable pearls, and Mboko was aiming right for them. Again, Sparks tried to cry out for Mboko to stop, but somehow Garza had managed to curl his legs under the crate that shielded him from the alien and pushed it away from him just enough to give Mboko the opening he needed.

He was too late.

Mboko pulled on the braided wire. A jet of flame erupted from the weapon in his hands, instantaneously igniting the weightless pearls of quinitricetyline. Chains of flame everywhere, burning blue and hot, igniting and winking out like the muzzle flare of a machine gun. The alien screeched and leapt away in pain, doused in fire. Sands' screams joined cacophony. He was completely aflame—a human inferno, writhing in agony and completely beyond help, as even more of the liquid oozed from the tank, literally adding more fuel to the fire.

Sparks stripped out of his flight suit; a large patch at his hip had been doused and was burning, the skin beneath already blistered and angry red.

Garza soon realised his hair was on fire and rubbed at it frantically as Desaille helped, both men pulling away lumps of fused and singed hair. Aside from the wounds in each arm where the alien's talons had punctured the flesh, he had miraculously sustained no life threatening injuries.

Mboko, struck mute by the chaos he had wrought in just trying to do the right thing, watched in horror as his friend flailed weightless and ablaze.

Sand's screams and the alien's screeches echoed together in the cavernous space of cargo one, a twisted, discordant chorus of agony, and just when Sparks and Mboko thought the situation could get no worse, fate dealt them another blow.

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Lambert watched the screen lividly, knowing GUARDIAN had just played dirty. His techs had done a beautiful job of severing its controls, the plan of simultaneous attacks on its systems successfully sending it into overdrive. But the planned meltdown didn't happen; GUARDIAN had started fighting back.

First the life support systems crashed. Then the primary power systems, followed closely by the secondary and tertiary draws. Air, heat, light and gravity, GUARDIAN cut all the systems that its human masters needed the most.

Like Eben before it, GUARDIAN was refusing to play by human rules.

"Where's the mainframe?" Asked the captain, steadying himself against a flashing bank of lights and buttons as he felt his feet leave the floor. His face was bathed in the glow of GUARDIAN's readouts, now the only means of illumination in the core.

"Under your feet," said Lambert, still unconsciously rubbing at the spot in his chest where Eben had struck earlier, "the walls, the floor... the ceiling—the core IS the mainframe."

The captain feigned understanding, though he had no idea how all the parts fitted together. Eben, GUARDIAN and the damn bureaucrats back on Earth has played a blinder of a trump card and proved that every life aboard the Sentry of Eons was worth less to them than a vile alien creature they had stumbled across. Big brother was watching, big brother was listening, and big brother had a callous machine heart that only considered the worth of a human life as a 1 or 0, nothing more than a soulless string of binary. Big brother had to go. "How do we kill it?"

Lambert looked appalled for a moment and shook his head—until now he had thought that the captain's talk of killing GUARDIAN had just been hyperbole, "Not advisable, captain; there's too many systems that need to be run by computer. And with Eben gone... if you shut down GUARDIAN, if you kill it stone dead, every tiny little thing—things we would easily overlook—would have to be done manually. It's almost impossible."

"Almost?" the captain arched an eyebrow at the engineer.

"That's the optimistic version. There aren't enough people by a long shot to run all the little background systems that guardian does."

"Life support, power," the captain counted on his finger tips, "comms, propulsion and for crying out loud gravity. Five systems—that's all we need."

"And every one needs a thousand start-ups and sub-routines to run," Lambert countered.

"Well we better think of something. We better think of something fast," sighed the captain.

"Sir!" somebody shouted from the gloom behind them. Both turned, thinking they were the one being addressed. One of Lambert's techs, Geddiman, sweating heavily, his face and flight suit smudged here and there with greasy smears, rose from a hatchway in the floor pit. His mop of red hair, usually meticulously combed and presentable, was a wild, weightless nest that made him look like a mad scientist from a kid holo-show. Seeing he had their attention—anybody's attention, as long as they were senior to him, really—he beckoned them over. "I found a redundant comm port left over from the refit!" he beamed proudly. The grin began to fade when the captain and engineering chief only returned silent, blank looks, oblivious to the potential importance of the discovery. He waggled a finger at them and scratched at his chin, a man taking a moment to think, "You don't get it. Okay.. erm... the comm port is what the core uses to relay signals through the systems. If you get a decent off-network computer and somebody with some programming savvy, you can make guardian your dancing monkey," grinning widely again, bursting with exuberance he added "you can make it chase its tail forever."

Deadly serious, despite the young engineer's almost contagious energy, the captain floated over to him gently, placing a hand on each of his shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. "How?"

Less than five minutes later, Davitch was in the pit and hooked into the redundant port . The computer pad in his hands raced with command lines flashing by, hundreds of thousands of commands per second. "It's been a few years since I had to do basic prog skills. I guess it's like riding a b...b...b..."

"What's the plan?" asked the captain, for now just a gently bobbing head peering upside down through the hole in the floor grating. Geddiman awaited up top, flicking through pages and pages of vast mathematical equations on his own computer pad. None of it made any sense to him or anybody around him, though he seemed gleeful at the complex formula before him. "Quantum algorithms," he proudly announced to the bizarre gathering of floating techs and engineers around the pit, "Guardian's running so many qubits it could do this in the blink of an eye, but we're feeding it through the comm port. Me and Davitch corrupted the integers, and thanks to some clever thinking it thinks it's a crucial command linked to a primary system. It's looking for an impossible answer over and over, but only being fed the data through the comm port byte by byte. It's like a bug in the mud. We got guardian by the balls and it's too busy to know it!"

"You broke it with maths?" remarked one of the engineers, "sounds like me in high school!"

Lambert took the pad from Geddiman's hands and scrutinised the endless equations, apparently impressed. "You gave it a problem that involves some lateral thinking."

"Creativity. Imagination." nodded Geddiman. "Things that computers find harder than hell."

Human qualities that still hadn't been fully replicated by computers—things that couldn't be broken down into binary sequences or quantifiable equations, as alien to them as the concept of a human soul. Lambert handed the pad to the captain, who barely glanced at the symbols and figures before handing it back to Geddiman, quietly impressed by the ingenuity and simplicity—at least as he saw it—of Geddiman and Davitch's solution. The whole thing literally looked Greek to him, but the flock of engineers seemed enthusiastic about the approach and its chances.

"The beauty of it is that we can have guardian's primary and secondary systems wrapped up in this," he pointed to the pad, "but we can programme it's tertiary systems to take up the slack human hands can't manage." Davitch's hand appeared through the top of the pit, flapping a 'gimme that' gesture. Geddiman passed it over, and in moments it was jacked in to the redundant port.

"Ruh...running." Davitch stammered calmly.

Everyone waited with baited breath. The quiet hum of the core began to grow louder and louder becoming a deep throb. Huge cooling fans far under the core began blowing air through the grid of heat exchangers, cooling the core to the point that most of them began to shiver. GUARDIAN, after only a few minutes of being tasked to think creatively, began to struggle. Each attempted cycle only multiplied its erroneous integers at the near exponential rate that it could think. "Gotcha." whispered Geddiman with unabashed satisfaction.

"The ship is our, s... sir." Davitch manoeuvred himself out of the pit. "I can give you whu... whu... what you want, but it'll take time."

The captain gave a brief nod of satisfaction. "Turn us around. Set a course for our teams on the ground." He turned, awkward in the air, and peered back over his shoulder, grumbling, "And can we get the damn gravity back on?"

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X- 

Cargo one was a scene of utter chaos: its gravity systems offline, contents tumbling freely though the air, all the freight acting like hammers in some kind of giant meat tenderiser. The smells of quinitricetyline and burnt hair assaulted the senses, of which smell and hearing were the most acute in the vast dimness of the hold.

And worse.

Sands, completely aflame, his skin blistered and split in places, blackened to a crisp in others. The subcutaneous fat cells beneath the surface rendering into a creamy grease that his skin slip-slided over. The intense heat of the flame had scorched the lining of his esophagus and sensitive membranes of his lungs, which now filled with fluid as his immune system tried to fight the damage. His throat was swelling shut, his screams reduced to wheezy gurgles. His eyes were milky white, a cataract of seared film over his corneas, eyelids burned away completely.

Above this horrifying sight, screeching and writhing, battered and buffeted between tumbling inventory crates, the alien. Its talons raked at the air in futility, as if it could claw its way back to its intended prey. Its lips were peeled back from its teeth, snarling, hissing. Black. Insectile. Its instinct to kill! kill! kill! had overcome its fear, the flames which had scorched its hard exoskeleton now all but forgotten.

Garza's nerve had shattered. He clawed at the smooth floor, scrambling, trying to flee to the exit—to escape this place of pain and death.

Mboko started this way and that, also in the claws of blind panic which pulled him in every direction at once, compelling him to act—to do something—to do ANYTHING! He was jabbering in vowels, forming no articulate sounds as behind him, unseen, one of the decanted marauders cartwheeled through the air. The stripped-out arm that once held the very flame unit that Mboko had wrought so much carnage with collided with his mouth, mashing his lips against teeth that shattered into dozens of shards in his bloody mouth. He went spiralling towards the ceiling, mercifully unconscious.

Sparks had been shouting for Garza to help Sands; for Mboko to look out; for—please, God—somebody to save them. But if there was some omniscient force watching over them it was a cruel, petty master, for at that moment his guts suddenly felt as if they were weighted with lead as everything and everybody in the room suddenly slammed hard to the floor again.

The massive snow globe of churning crates and bodies within cargo one crashed to the deck like they had been dropped. A sealed marauder cube, all two tonnes of it, smashed down onto Sands legs as they hit the ground almost simultaneously. The sheet metal of the casing warped and buckled with the impact, but Sands' wail was weak and wet.

Sparks hit the floor, his lower back glancing hard off the corner of a steel crate. He exclaimed in pain, somehow still having the clarity of thought to throw his arm over his head to shield himself as another small crate fell onto him. He lurched to his feet, grimacing and nursing his spine, eyes searching for the loathsome alien creature. His eyes fell on Sands, making his gorge rise in his throat immediately. He threw up.

Sands' legs, already split and swollen where his fatigues has been burned away, were crushed; his flesh and jellied fat ruptured through the skin like pus from a boil. Worse than that, Sands—blind, scorched and dying—was still trying to crawl away despite being hopelessly trapped. He was reaching, fingers grasping at the floor, but when he tried to pull himself forward naked muscle and bones slid from the seared skin, leaving the blistered husks of his fingers, hands and forearms stuck to the floor like empty sausage skins.

Sparks threw up again.

There followed a rattle and a crash of crates close to his right as he faltered, half-concussed, towards where Sands lay. The creature erupted from a haphazard mountain of boxes, no longer hissing but growling with antipathy. Its head reared on Sparks immediately, jaws parted teeth bared. It hauled its body from beneath the crate that had it trapped and dashed after Sparks, clambering over the rubble of inventory that had landed everywhere. When Sparks reached the flamethrower that lay beside the dying trooper he realised his time had run out. The alien leapt at him, a dark skeletal nightmare springing through the air, a seething monster ready to rip him apart. Sparks twisted away, cold panic dropping from the pit of his stomach. His legs buckled beneath him, weak from fear and the horror of everything he had witnessed in the last few minutes.

The stumble saved his life. The alien overshot its mark and slammed full force into one of the decanted marauders. Stunned, the creature slid languidly backwards over the mech, trapping itself in the empty cube from which the marauder had emerged. Its talons screeched down the olive drab paintwork of the compartment to bare steel beneath, its tail thrashing and whipping hard enough to drive dents into the sheet steel of the walls.

Sparks' instincts screamed for him to run, to follow Garza and flee for his life, yet still his legs couldn't obey the commands from his mind. There would be no flight—he could only fight. The flamethrower unit beside him was heavy and cumbersome he knew, but he didn't have to lift it—only to aim it.

The cornered xenomorph wheeled around to face him. Silent, baring a macabre grin, as if it knew its end had come. It eased its inner jaws past its teeth and hissed. Sparks returned the sneer as his hand found the actuator wire. The pale blue pilot burner snapped into life. "Sayonara." He growled, and pulled the braided wire all the way.

The jet of flame consumed the alien, the fire condensed and focussed by the crate in which the creature was trapped. Its screeches were high and pained and unlike any sound it had made before. Its agony was a satisfying song to Sparks who was unaware that he was laughing, harshly and without real mirth, mocking its pain as it roasted to death in what had become something alike to a blast furnace. Weaker and weaker, its wails petered out and still Sparks kept roasting it, just to make god damn sure it was as dead as he wanted it to be until, finally, that numbing red rage in him began to abate. He panted, exhausted, trying to pull in a decent breath into his tight chest. He clumsily tried to get to his feet, legs weak and quaking all over from fear and adrenaline. The crate was scorched until the olive drab paint had peeled off and the metal beneath had turned a kind of pearlescent blue-black. Curled up in the bottom corner of the marauder cube lay the creature, its insides crackling and spitting like cooking meat, wrapped in on itself in a fetal ball. Somehow that seemed fitting. He could only despise it; less than forty-eight hours ago it was wrapped in a fetal ball as it gestated within the chest of one of the poor bastards brought back from the planet surface. Yes, somehow it seemed fitting.

His breathing was becoming laboured and rapid, his heart a hammering fist in his chest. He tried again to draw in another deep calming breath, but found he couldn't sate his need for air. White spots began to dance at the periphery of his vision as the tips of his fingers and toes began to tingle. He tried again to rise to his feet and again his weakness prevented him. Nausea sank and twisted in his stomach, yet at the same moment he felt a euphoric lightness wash over him.

Understanding now what was happening to him he looked ruefully at the smashed air vent the alien had used.

The fire.

The fire had eaten up all of the oxygen in the room and life support hadn't kicked in to recycle the air yet. He was suffocating. The barrage of sensations his body was going through were all symptoms of hypoxia. Sparks gasped as his eyes fell on the scorched ruin of what used to be a human being, Sands. A bubble of mucus swelled and contracted minutely between his swollen, blistered lips and popped when he groaned weakly.

Throbbing in his temples and behind his eyes, Sparks felt the unbearable ache of a migraine crush his oxygen starved brain. His last lingering conscious thoughts was only what a mercy it would be for Sands, whose suffering would now be short lived, one way or another.

Blackness encroached on his vision, sweeping away all before him, consuming everything.

He could hear his heart hammering in his chest.

His pulse in his ears, throbbing behind his eyes.

Then there was nothing.

Not even darkness.

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Thomson dashed through the corridors as quickly as his legs could take him on the orders of the captain. Geddiman and Davitch were hard at work trying to regain system control at the core, taking back what GUARDIAN had done. Dozens of crew members were double-timing it back to their posts in readiness for when their system would come back online. At the captain's insistence power and the grav-control centrifuges had been restored before all the others to prevent a ship full of floating crew swimming in the air to reach their posts—the thought was amusing, and he guessed it was a good call on the captain's part. Still, life support would have to be restored soon before it became a problem. He mentally ticked off the remainder of the checklist: life support, comms, propulsion—the must haves. He was comms. Right now all other systems were secondary. What did it matter if there was not hot water, or the heads didn't flush when you were slowly freezing or suffocating to death in the dark, right?

But, damn... even if he did get back to his post and find his station already operational, there was a hundred and one diagnostic tests to do before he could so much as ping a sonar. On top of that, it would all need done manually: the transmitter and receiver would need realigned; the frequencies scanned and set by hand. He was going to be busy, for sure. But he was equally sure that he was up to the task.

As he sped into his station in the communications deck, he was pleased to see that Brier and Schultz were already there, despite them officially being off-shift. Good. Three hands would make light work, and Lieutenant Brier, his superior, would keep him focussed.

As he took his seat, Brier faced him, her raven hair tied up and held in place by the handle of a spoon from the mess. Impressive improvisation there, el-tee, he thought, adjusting the back rest.

"Good work, Ensign," she said.

Thomson noted the sheen of sweat on her brow. He couldn't tell of it was from worry or exertion. Maybe both.

"Set magnitude, impedance and phase," said Schultz, his hands darting over the buttons of the comm before him. He was thin and wiry, hair scraggly and with five o'clock shadow darkening his cheeks and chin, he looked exhausted. Or maybe he had just turned out his bunk. "Zero-zero-six degrees. Declination adjusted. I need HKR tac-comms before I can scan for beacons."

"Thomson, get on it." Brier ordered.

"Yes, sir." Thomson's fingers danced over his console, reinitialising the powerful transmitter array that Schultz was at this moment realigning. "Their last known coordinates were logged," he added.

"Then we'll start there. Remember to adjust for divergence; once propulsion and navigation kicks in we're going to lose that window for a while."

All three programmed their consoles as quickly as they could. The occasional frustrated sigh escaped them as they backtracked to correct some error made in their haste, or sometimes picked up by another member.

"Coordinates locked in." Schultz finished typing and swivelled his chair to face Thomson who sat on the other side of Brier. "C'mon, noob, we're waiting for you."

Brier herself finished rattling buttons on her console and slid out of her chair to Thomson's side without missing a beat. She peered over his shoulder at his screen. "Good," she said with quiet approval in his ear, "Good work , Ensign. Bypass the macros, guardian doesn't use them anyway."

Thomson felt himself flush hot and sticky with sweat now—the pressure was on; the pressure to establish contact with those left on the ground; the pressure to find out if they'd be returning to rescue anything but corpses. As his fingers slid off the last command button he sighed heavily, "Locked in, Lieutenant."

Brier slipped back into the seat at her comm. The screen blinked with a single word in bold white type, stark against the black screen:

INITIATE?

She pushed the button confirming the order and all held their breath.

Every screen in the room suddenly went blank, and the men on either side of Brier felt their hearts sink. They turned to her to ask of their efforts had come to nothing. She held her finger up to hush them before they had even spoken. "Give it a moment; it's all running through that old port, remember; the transfer rates will be pretty poor."

Thomson was unconsciously holding his breath, and he noticed that Brier was just as unconsciously biting her bottom lip.

Brightness flared back into the room as Schultz's display bloomed back to life, hundreds of radio frequencies tumbling down the screen, each live one locking into a sidebar on the right hand side of the display where the operator could monitor the comm channels. "It worked. It worked!" Schultz exclaimed, "I've got the Sentry's contacts."

Brier slipped out of her seat again to his side, her eyes scanning the myriad of frequencies, "These are short waves. Deck to deck comms," she said almost dismissively, "set high gain, high magnitude. Look for anything with the slightest decay—that'll be our our marks on the planet."

Schultz nodded keenly. "On it."

Thomson's display bloomed to life as the others conversed—a series of criss-cross symmetrical lines that came together and multiplied exponentially. They warped and bulged into an undulating virtual wire frame. The sluggish computer system slowly started adding terrain details to the wireframe: Ocean and lakes, geological formations, forests, polar ice caps, small pockets of desert; a topographical representation of the planet they had left behind slowly coalescing on screen before him. "Where are the transponders?" he murmured to himself in concern.

"Let it work," Brier assured, taking her seat again in expectation of her own station going active again, "try setting the refresh rate higher, but remember we're running only about a tenth of the flops we're used to."

Thomson tapped in commands. The view of the terrain zoomed away until the representation of the planet hung in the inky black void of virtual space. A yellow crosshair scanned down the planet, starting at its northern pole to an area between its tropics and equator and flashed white as it locked on to something. The view zoomed in sharply, until they were looking at the verdant sea of of the forest canopy bisected from south-west to north-east by the rude dark slash of a chain of mountains. Rivers ran like veins and arteries across the landscape—water, the very life blood of this lush, fertile world. "This is it," Thomson remarked, tracing the thick shadow that the cliffs and mountains cast over basin to the west, "that's where the search and rescue team went on op. But where the hell are their transponders?"

"Easy, ensign." Briers assured again, "stay focussed."

Thermal details started filling in the virtual topography: the heat bloom from the alien wreckage; the distinct grazing trails up to a kilometre wide where the planet's warm blooded mammals moved across the surface; temperature fluctuations induced by changing barometric pressure and moving weather systems. Then, suddenly, the cross hair locked on again. A single yellow blip flashed onscreen at the cliff edge, where a titanic waterfall plummeted into the basin. "There!" his finger jabbed at the screen. Another blip appeared. Then another, and another. More and more little pockets of hits until they counted seventeen altogether, including the strange signal that had lured the search and rescue team to the planet in the first place.

"Look how scattered they are," Schultz commented, "Jeez, they're all over the place."

"Yeah." Brier's remark was without emotion, though she rubbed both her cheeks absently, as if in a quandary. "Notify the captain. We have them locked in."

"Wait." Thomson uttered.

"Wait?" Brier almost bristled at Thomson's tone that had sounded too much like an order. Her fleeting irritation faded when Thomson pointed to an anomaly on the display. Her brow furrowed down in curiosity. "What the hell is that?" she asked in wonderment.

The display highlighted in a false blue hue a large anomaly that seemed to cover an area of almost three square kilometres. The amorphous mass seemed to shift and bulge, constantly changing shape. And it was moving east, directly towards the transponder signals on the ground.

Brier was tapping on her keys again in a flurry of activity.

"It's absorbing all the mammalian readings. Just swallowing them up. What the hell?" Thomson's voice was thick with some apprehension that the others were silently acknowledging in themselves upon seeing that shifting mass.

"Thank you. I can see that." Brier remarked, still tapping keys.

"Noob, I'm not registering any movement in any of your contacts. Check for ECT readings. And while you're at it look for meat wagon beacons; they still use them to zero dropships on KIA." Schultz said, making it sound like an order, though he didn't have the authority to do so.

Brier suddenly leapt to her feet, awestruck. Her own updated topography showed masses of arachnid clustered not far to the south of the transponder hits. Here and there were small but swiftly moving readings of lifeforms that registered as silicate based life forms—these seemed to be badgering the clusters of arachnid endlessly. In fact they appeared to be so preoccupied with each other that the moving transponders seemed to be making good an escape to the east. But that shapeless mass moved inexorably towards them all, swallowing up all life before it, growing, multiplying like bacteria in a petri dish. Her readings had to be wrong. Had to be. "Raise the field marshal right now, raise anybody you can" she said in a bare whisper as Thomson and Schultz watched her display in stunned silence, "tell them to run for their lives."

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The spartan climbed over the cusp of the cliff edge beside the waterfall. A clear aspic-like fluid oozed from a gash in one of the rare chinks in his armour, under his armpit, where the kevlar weave undersuit was exposed. The plates of his armour were considerably more scored than before, criss-crossed with dual parallel slashes.

Other than that Rico thought the chief looked pretty darn good, considering what he had just pulled off. Somewhere in the cove far below was the carcass of a hunter he had taken on hand-to-hand and, miraculously, killed. "You must be cast of iron, son." Rico remarked with a small spark of pride in his breast as the spartan got to his feet.

Master Chief rapped his knuckles against his helmet. "Not iron. Carbide."

Rico stood, quietly non-nonplussed, unsure if the chief had made a joking remark or not.

The spartan turned this way and that for a moment, searching the trees. "The other one?"

"Toast," Rico remarked, acknowledging Azumi, who watched the chief in steely silence. Luminous green blood was crusted in spatters up her arms in places and on the sheath and handle of her combat knife. A distinctive trail of arterial spray speckled her from naval to neck. Somehow, the chief surmised, the little waif of a girl before him had got the jump on the hunter and got close enough to cut its throat.

"That's incredible," he stated plainly.

"That's lucky," Rico replied dismissively. Azumi still watched the spartan in silent accusation. "What you did was incredible."

"Your friend?" the chief interrupted Rico, addressing Azumi.

"'Douris is none of your damn business," she answered, barely keeping a lid on her resentment of the chief, "it's your fault we're here in the first place."

"Secure that mouth, trooper!" Rico barked.

Azumi's mouth set hard. She turned without another word and began walking back upstream, towards where Poledouris' body lay.

"Don't take it personal." Rico advised the chief as they both watched her walk away, "I think she would've aimed that at me if she thought she could've gotten away with it."

The constant drizzle had soaked into Rico's fatigues. Tumultuous grey clouds roiled, and lightning scoured the sky here and there, slowly heading towards the south-western horizon. All the static hanging thickly in the air had been making the comm in his ear buzz and crackle. Every now and then he had let himself hope that he had head a voice in the static, but each time his hope had been dashed. In the distance a blanket lightning flickered and flashed, looking like the sky above a distant battlefield. There was a surge of static in his ear again, and Rico was close to plucking the earpiece out when he realized it wasn't wholly static. He heard something that time—some articulate sound, he was sure: "uffneck.. eeder... errah.. one.. do ..ooo ..op?"

Rico's hand shot to his ears, plugging them. Oh, so distant, crackling and tinny but definitely a voice. Rico waited anxiously for it to repeat. "Roughneck leader, this is sierra-echo-one. Do you copy?" An unabashed smile of relief and delight bloomed across his face, and he keyed the button on his helmet to respond. "Yes! Christ! I copy sierra-echo-one—this is roughneck leader. Where the hell have you been?"

The male voice was soft and polite—a voice he recognized as the ensign who had picked up the fried transponder signal. This time he seemed more coherent and less flustered than when they had been face-to-face. "Roughneck leader, we have your signal locked in,"

"Great!" Rico interrupted, "Now get us to hell off this rock!"

There was a pregnant pause; even over radio and the gulf of space between them, Rico could sense the weight of that silence. When Thomson spoke again it was direct and personal, unlike the officious, professional coolness of other comm-techs, "We're working on that. Right now you have to run. Run as fast as your legs can carry you."

Rico's brow knitted into a frown as he keyed his helmet's mike, "Keep to the point, son; I need clear, precise communications.

There was another crackle of static fizz and the muffled angry voice of a woman barking a rebuke or order. She picked up the conversation, her voice flat, professional and scratchy in the earpiece. "Roughneck leader, this is sierra-echo-one, be advised there is a considerable mass of organic matter heading towards your position, copy?"

Rico's frown deepened, "Copy sierra-echo-one. Clarify 'considerable organic mass', over?"

Master Chief watched and listened to Rico attentively; the words 'considerable organic mass' had caught his attention, and not for the first time in his life.

Again her flat, unperturbed tone in his earpiece, "Anomaly of unknown origin, sir. All we know is that it's consuming every living thing it touches," her tone suddenly changed a little, tinged with foreboding, "and it's heading towards your position like a god damned tidal wave."

"A tidal wave?" Rico said sharply, getting ready to tell the comm-techs to stop speaking in riddles. As soon as he said it the spartan stirred noticeably, and turned to the cliff edge, looking intently over the vast vista of the basin below that their high vantage point offered him. It was the most agitated he had seen the warrior yet, and again another piece of the puzzle snapped into place for Rico. He felt a cold shudder run through him. "A tidal wave," he murmured, "...or a flood."

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The massive shearing jaws of one of the hideous insectoids snapped shut just centimetres from the tree limb where Phay'd stood, firing relentlessly into the shrieking, hissing hordes on the ground. If it had actually gotten to the bough, Phay'd was sure those forbidding jaws could have lopped it off easily. He fixed his targeting glyph on its thorax and fired. The hot plasma blew a hole the size of his fist through its vital organs, and the thick off-green soup of its innards started slopping though the charred breach.

He was swelling with pride and exultation at having found the Dek'd'tor and Gryshh, whom Phay'd had left behind to guard the ancient one when he went to investigate the fate of the main seeder, though the situation he had eventually discovered them in was perilous—surrounded by two warring hard meats in the lashing rain: the kainde amedha that his species had brought to this world to breed and hunt for sport; and the insectoid hard meat, the zabin amedha, that they had unexpectedly stumbled over. Both species were locked in a battle for survival now, and it was impossible for him to tell which way the phenomenal battle was going. For every strength one species had the other seemed to have a counter to it. The insectoid zabin amedha had strength and numbers, the kainde amedha had speed and nimbleness. Their acid blood was their greatest asset, and inflicted heavy damage upon the insectoids, though it cost the kainde amedha just as grievously to inflict it. The great grinding battle of these two species threatened to result in a pyrrhic victory for which ever one remained alive at the end. Everywhere was the chewed up remains of the hard meat, quivering next to the dissolving cadavers of the insectoids. Yet still they warred on, clambering over the fallen.

Below, one of the hard meat began climbing into the tree, its talons gripping deep into the soft bark easily. The glyph of his mask's targeting system locked onto the alien's head, the small actuators that drove his shoulder burner fixing upon it, but he was saved the effort when one of the insectoids clamped its jaws on the alien's long tail and hauled it screeching back into the fray and its almost inevitable doom. Elsewhere he watched three of the aliens corner a lone insectoid in the burned out hollow of an old lightning-struck tree before proceeding to take it apart, piece by piece and limb by limb, with almost surgical efficiency.

Phay'd was preparing to scout a route out of the jam to safety, but knew that the Dek'd'tor may not have the strength left to escape; the ancient yautja looked exhausted as he crouched in the safety of the boughs high above, his long scarlet cloak was wrapped around his withered old body. Of Claw there had been no sign, and he presumed he had made good headway towards investigating the mothership wreck or died in glory.

There was a steadily growing scent carried on the breeze that perturbed his olfactory glands. It smelled like decay; like rotting flesh and corruption. Carrion. Death itself riding on the air currents, sweeping by them, an invisible phantom.

The battling hordes below also seemed to sense what hung in the air. Their vitriol petered out, then halted, leaving only twitching corpses and those in their death throes in the churned mud. The aliens and insectoids alike halted and looked west, almost as one. The air was heavy with grim expectation as Phay'd and Gryshh too peered west, seeing only trees stretching away forever. Yet still, that malodour of decay grew until they could almost taste it. A moment so quiet and still that Phay'd might not have believed it save for the fact that he trusted his keen senses.

Then chaos. Both species of hard meat, the aliens and the insectoids, erupted together in a cacophony of shrieks and hisses, ear splitting screeches and roars of absolute antipathy. These warring species now stood side by side, oblivious of the instinctual imperative to destroy each other. They were held rapt by something in the west. Something which had them truly alarmed.

Phay'd climbed higher into the tree followed closely by Gryshh. The Dek'd'tor's breathing was a low grunt, and Phay'd wondered if all the recent effort had proved too much for the old one. A deep uncharacteristic unease crept into him again, telling of a danger that was yet to come. As he passed he took the time to activate the elder's chameleon field before activating his own. Gryshh followed suit, and soon all three trapped predators were veiled, rendered nearly invisible in their almost perfect optical camouflage.

When he peered west again Phay'd found himself startled by the sudden appearance of... something. Something his mind couldn't quite assimilate. From out of the blue a wall of shifting organic mass had crept up on them, moving easily over the undulating terrain and between the wide tree trunks. It's lukewarm thermal signature showed in wan yellows and greens to him, the colour of pus and corruption. The shapeless mound blotted out the horizon, and Phay'd came to a stark realization: it was not one moving mass, but a host of millions of swollen creatures moving forward as one—an unstoppable living wave. The vast majority of its mass consisted of small gaseous sacs that seemed to flit lightly and swiftly through the air using short appendages that hung from beneath their bodies oddly. They seemed to grasp and feel the air with three tendrils which ended in bizarre organs that were almost feathered in texture. Charging through this biomass were larger creatures, bipedal creatures of a sort that loosely resembled yautja, though their bodies were bulbous and twisted and gnarled. Some lacked limbs and had sprouted tentacles in their place that carried out the same function; others were headless, or their heads hung on spines that were snapped and twisted to such a degree that Phay'd puzzled how these things lived at all. These forms resembled the small gaseous sacs very little, save for that cluster of feathered tendrils that erupted from placed in their necks or chests. Waddling awkwardly through the throngs were large bulbous creatures, their hugely bloated bodies undulated and pulsed from within, waxy skin distending, inflating, deflating, as if their very innards were constantly in motion. They had no heads to speak of, and seemed to lack limbs altogether except for the short, stubby legs that protruded from their bloated, malformed bodies. All had tough mottled skin that looked like rotten animal hide.

Phay'd rose from his crouch, instinctively sensing the threat that this new faction posed. The small motorized drone of the burner on Gryshh's shoulder locking on brought him back to the moment. That living wave was just seconds away. His eyes fell on one of the closer of the bipedal beings as it got closer; when he had first observed them he had noticed a kind of superficial similarity to the yautja, but only now did he realize with absolute abhorrence the significance of that comparison; the creature's gnarled skin was covered by a yautja body mesh; the one arm that remained intact wore a gauntlet and fingerless hide gloves which were now bursting at the seams because of the swollen and twisted flesh within. Its burner hung askew from the hump its shoulder had become, the hide straps taut and biting deeply into its flesh. Those feathered organs he had observed sprouted from the neck.

Phay'd growled in disgust. This new life form—whatever it may be—seemed to infest the body, desecrate it until it was almost unrecognisable, and use it for its own ends. His fellow hunt brother's body had been reduced to a marionette for this low being.

He spotted another walking ruin of what used to be a proud hunter then another, and another, each looking worse and worse by degrees, their skins blackened. Another realization more awful than the first gripped him then, making him roar with outrage: the last of the infested hunters he saw was recognizable to him; its flayed skin and the scowl on its crooked head were the last thing he saw of this yautja earlier. It was Noc, the leader who had burned to death in the main seeder when it had crashed, now reduced to a puppet of meat, the relic of his remains defiled and corrupted.

Blistering rage gripped his heart like talons. His legs became rigid, quaking with anger. Against these vile creatures there was to be no peace, even in death. They were not a foe worthy of honour; not worthy to hunt. They were low. Contemptible.

_Syuit-de thei-de._

The low death.

Honour demanded that they be exterminated. Destroyed. Annihilated without mercy. The parasites must be cut from the body of a hunter like a rank tumour.

The mass of low parasites met the screeching hordes of aliens and arachnid, washing over both hard meat species like a wave breaking on rocks, rolling over the top of them, closing in on where Phay'd stood invisible, watching the carnage unfold below from his vantage point on a high, thick bough.

The din of the hard meat grew louder, sounds of distress that were rare to hear, save for if one killed a queen in their presence. The small gas sacs swarmed over anything they came into contact with, tendrils searching, searching...

He witnessed a host of them overcome one of the insectoids, all of them probing around for soft spots in its chitinous outer shell. One feeler settled on the huge wet orb of the arachnid's eye and thrust the tendril in, burrowing into the flesh of the berserking insect until only the feathered organs remained exposed, hanging obscenely from the empty orbit. The arachnid's encased flesh reacted instantly, swelling up so hard and so fast that it erupted from every joint in its exoskeleton, insides spilling out. With a grim satisfaction Phay'd realised that both the zabin amedha and the low parasite that had burrowed into its body had been killed; the pressure of the infected flesh swelling up within the hard carapace of the insect's body had killed the infector. The corrupted insectoid collapsed dead, those feathered organs still and lifeless. Nor was that the only one it had happened to, he noticed. Throughout the insectoid horde they screeched and flailed and snapped their jaws in distress, innards splitting though the joints in their outer shells, each to an identical end.

And again he noticed how the acid blood of the kainde amedha served them as the infection abominations attacked them also, trying to find a soft spot to burrow under their skins. The parasites tried, and the parasites failed, as each successful breakthrough deluged them in a stream of dissolving acid that consumed them.

The desecrated yautja husks, twisted and mutilated as they were, waded into the throng using whatever weapons were to hand. Phay'd found himself surprised as they sprang on the hard meat, burners blasting and slashing with their kic'ti-pa, using the weapons as they were intended; it showed real indisputable intelligence—a trait unheard of in parasites. The wave continued onwards, consuming all below, and before long the infesting gas sacs were swarming up the tree towards him and the others, somehow sensing their presence and rendering the chameleon fields useless. He grunted a command to Gryshh, who quickly dropped from his higher limb and took position beside Phay'd, ready for a final stand. Both aimed their burners into the swarm, their weapons set to wide beam. It would cut the effective range of the burners but would allow the scattered plasma to take out more foes at a time and allow them the best chance of destroying the encroaching abominations before they reached them.

An old, withered hand fell on his shoulder, and Phay'd turned to see the Dek'd'tor's blind eyes meet his somehow. The elder's hands groped down the length of his arm, coming to rest on the gauntlet mounted on his wrist. With the ease of long years of experience, the elder slipped the destruct module from the mount on Phay'd's gauntlet and slid on the holographic module—the record of the ancient elder's life bestowed upon him now, an honour beyond measure. The elder slipped the destruct module onto his own gauntlet and solemnly bowed his head at Phay'd. Before they parted ways the ancient yautja bestowed one final slice of wisdom—part honorific proverb, part warning that was instilled in all unbloodied hunters before their first hunt:

_Thin-de le'hsaun 'aloun'myin-de s' bpi-de gka-de hou-depaya_.

Learn the gift of all sights, or finish in the dance of the fallen gods.

Though Phay'd was far from unbloodied, he thought he understood the subtext within the proverb: there was something he was yet to see. Some knowledge that he had to know, or piece of crucial information that had been entrusted to him for protection. A piece of the past that had to survive into the future. The elder's record was more important to him than his very life, which he was prepared to lay down to protect.

Stunned, Phay'd could think of no gesture of thanks that would match the honour he felt. The ancient one sighed heavily, then dialled the destruct command into the module he now wore, fingers entering the code easily despite his blindness. As the low parasites raced up the tree towards them the countdown began, red glyphs ticking away the last moment of his life. Phay'd and Gryshh sped away north-east, moving through the treetops swiftly, despite their wounds biting into their flesh with each bound and catch.

The Dek'd'tor waited until the last moments of the count, when the tones changed to a higher pitch, indicating the reaction had almost reached critical mass. He sighed again, lighter this time, as if with relief. He stood tall, forcing his withered old muscles and bones past the atrophied limits they had withered into with extreme old age. The pain of his proud posture was exquisite. He roared triumphantly to the sky. Roared until his breath gave out. For that briefest of moments, with the rain dappling his face and the wind billowing his scarlet cloak and cooling his skin, he felt young again.

Then he felt nothing at all.

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The sky to the west, pregnant with dull, heavy clouds, suddenly flared with white light. The spartan was the first to see it, and the reactive tint of his visor automatically filtered out the initial brilliant flash. Rico stood behind him, shielding his eyes and grumbling about this being the second time his eyeballs had been seared by a flash of brilliant white light. Azumi came running forward, helping the field marshal as he wobbled on his feet, a perfect phantom image of the sea of treetops burned into his retinas and fading slowly.

"It's happening again!" Azumi exclaimed, looking to the sky, eyes searching.

"Hell it is!" Rico growled, squeezing his eyes shut again, sourly trying to regain some sight, "do you feel your fillings buzz?"

"It's an explosion," remarked the spartan. Less than a degree below the western horizon a huge expanding bubble of seething electrical energy tore up the forest like a thermo-nuclear detonation. The radiating blast wave flattened the forest for miles. "somebody just did us a big favour. Against a flood force that big we wouldn't have stood a chance. Us, or this entire world."

All stood in awe as within minutes a great mushroom cloud roiled miles into the air on the horizon, white and grey ash roiling into the atmosphere like an angry titan. "You think anything survived _that_?" asked Rico, still blinking and rubbing his eyes, straining for focus.

"I think..." Master chief paused, searching for the words, "if I know the flood, they never have their eggs in one basket. Maybe their numbers are more manageable now, and maybe that'll give us a fighting chance. But don't hope that they're gone; they're too smart for that. Get your people off this planet and wipe it clean. Glass it."

"Fuckin' A." Azumi remarked with decided approval.

"The Sentry's carrying four Q-bombs," Rico mulled over the idea, "planet breakers."

Rico watched the growing mushroom cloud tower into the atmosphere and drown out even more of the daylight, but its destructive power paled into insignificance compared to the capabilities of the Q-bomb. The debates still raged as to whether the weapon capable of destroying an entire planet was the most reckless and needlessly destructive force ever conceived by mankind, or a necessary evil that saved many lives on worlds infested by rare 'master brains', a gargantuan monstrosity at the very top of the bug caste that could grow underground to the size of a small country. Only nine had ever been deployed, mostly on barren ice worlds or parched desert rocks. Worlds like this one were so precious. So rare, this new Earth...

The decision could wait. They had to get moving. Rico selected Dalray's frequency and keyed his mike. "Roughneck leader to roughneck two, do you copy?"

The lieutenant's response was quick, and there was an edge of urgency in his voice that Rico had rarely heard. "Copy, roughneck leader. Glad you're okay, sir."

"What's your status, over?"

The spartan, not privy to the conversation, watched Rico's jaw clench, his free hand ball into a tight fist. He guessed the answer to his question was not good.

"Copy that, lieutenant. See if you can rendezvous with the whitecoats who put down at the wreck site. We're getting off this damn rock asap, over and out." Rico hoisted up his blazer, wincing as the pain caught in his ribs. "We head east. Let's see if there's somewhere clear enough upstream for a dropship to put down without us having to cross the river again." He set off without another word, followed by the spartan warrior.

Azumi's eyes fell on the partially covered bodies of 'Douris and the others they had cut down from the tree. "What about our guys, sir?" she called after him, her voice wrought with frustration. Without turning or stopping, Rico reached in a breast pocket and fished out seven blood crusted dog tags, letting them dangle from his fist.

"Their troubles are over, trooper. I think ours have just begun."

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The survivors had made good their escape but that was cold comfort to Dalray, who still found himself trembling, now more out of anger at himself than the fear and adrenaline that had instigated the shakes. The taint of his failure was bitter.

They had left the basalt plains a few clicks at their heels, and that bizarre conflict between the bugs and, well... the other damn bugs. Everybody was straining now, running on empty and sustained by sheer adrenaline, and still they double timed it haphazardly down the slippery scree-strewn slope of the promontory that demarcated the eastern boundary of the mountains. Everybody had taken a spill at some point, shredding their palms on sharp rocky splinters, cursing breathlessly and taking to their heels again. Before him was an almost featureless expanse of greenery, only broken by an oily black column of smoke rising into the sky a ways off to the south-east that might bear some investigation, preferably from the air. If only the pick up crew would light a fire under their asses...

Ahead, the huge expanse of meadow was covered in tall, lush grass. Breaking up the sea of swaying grasses were occasional thickets of thorny vines that could be traps or perfect cover. He was all too aware it was the perfect place to walk into an ambush. Having had his squad taken to pieces in one ambush already, he wasn't prepared to march into another potential ambush situation. He needed time to compose himself and gather his thoughts, dammit. If he had his bearings correct they were somewhere a few miles due south of where the alien ship had crashed, though there was no sign of it.

As the shale and scree turned to solid rock again, he ordered a halt. Everybody collapsed onto the wet rock where they stopped. Nicks and Hooper slumped onto their backs panting, having shared the effort of dragging Cox, who was mercifully unconscious, to safety after he lost both legs during the ambush.

"Ammo check. Get some chow if you can." He ordered, wearily tugging his canteen from his webbing and draining the last of the lukewarm water. His stomach grumbled. Hunger pangs so bad they felt like cramps knotted his gut, but his appetite was non existent. When nobody else made an effort to eat anything he guessed they felt the same. His mind turned again and again to the ambush. Van Buren's and Cox' screams echoed in his mind. Dammit, he had seen men fall before, why was this time screwing with him so badly? Looking over the survivors the answer was plain: Frears, Nicks, Troy Hooper, Woods and himself had made it out alive and intact. Cox had made it out alive, at least for now. Van Buren, Kovacs, Aguerre, Sommers and Ryker had not. Damn near half his squad fed to the mobile infantry grinder that just loved to chew up troopers. It was a bitter, bitter thing his self-imposed sense of failure.

Long minutes passed as he blamed himself, but those few minutes of rest seemed to have done the others a power of good. Frears cradled Cox' head on his lap, trying and failing to get the unconscious trooper to take a sip from the canteen at his lips. The others were yammering and jabbering in disbelief and a thousand different emotions, coming to terms with what had happened; nobody could remember a single action where they had lost so many people at one time; those kind of statistics were consigned to the history books, back when field marshal Rico had been a young man. But then there had been what had happened to Keever's squad. Dalray felt a sour brush with ignominy as he thought of how his losses and Keever's losses would be compared and analysed in the debriefs and post-action reports, regardless of if he survived or not. His tired legs were threatening to cramp, and he grumbled to himself as he tried to stretch his stiff limbs. They couldn't stay here, they were too exposed. The high ground they had left behind would've been a perfect place to wait out a pick-up, but recent events had proved without a shadow of a doubt that sometimes perfect still isn't good enough. And there was the field marshal's orders to consider too. Dalray, ever the professional officer, obeyed these vague, rushed commands despite his doubts. The field marshal may have had supreme command on the ground, but he was not infallible. Dalray knew he should have called him on it. And just how was he supposed to wait for extraction when the comms were for shit?

_Get yourself together, worm!_ an inner voice berated him; an old voice he hadn't heard since his days as a green recruit.

"Never say fuck it," he spoke the mantra of his drill sergeant during basic. It wasn't exactly Tennyson or Boze, but it didn't have to be; those four words had got a lot of green recruits through their training and instilled in them a rare determination that he knew he still possessed. Dalray had been a sickly boy, and that boy had grown to be a slight, but tenacious, teen, and it was that teen that sergeant Cross had plucked from the mud and yelled in his face over and over and over again. The memory was hazing over with a decade of soldiering behind him now, but that face loomed large in his mind: sharp features and an impossibly square jaw that seemed have been carved from granite; that giant man grimacing, teeth as large as tombstones, his good eye glaring like his cyclopean ire could penetrate your skull and make your brain melt into mush. Cross may have been a ball buster; he may have been uglier than sin and built like a brick outhouse—hell, knowing what he put his recruits through, he may have been the devil incarnate—but he knew how to take a wad of spit and shit and turn him into a god damned soldier. And a god damned soldier of the mobile infantry at that.

God damn it. He sighed heavily, and followed it with a deeper, cleansing breath. Second Lieutenant Karl Dalray wasn't the type to wallow in self pity, or to give in to a crisis of confidence—both were for the weak and self indulgent, and as a man he had allowed himself to be neither. He wasn't about to start now; if he allowed himself to go to shit, all of them might buy it, and that was an ignominy too far for his taste. Lemons and lemonade and all that jazz.

There was no miraculous renewal of spirit, no new vigour in his flesh and bones—he was too dog tired; just the grim determination instilled in him by the mental and verbal recitation of the mantra instilled in him by a one-eyed grizzly bear of a sergeant: "NEVER say fuck it."

Dalray scoffed at himself, then allowed himself the luxury of a chuckle. Cross. What was that joke? That old joke they used to love telling each other at lights out? Recruit A says something like: _'You see who reamed out Forbes?' _and Recruit B says: _'Cross?'_ Recruit A says: _'Cross? Shit, he was furious!'_

How they had laughed. How they thought they were so damn tough. So damn righteous.

Never say fuck it.

Dalray got to his feet wearily. It was time to—

"Roughneck leader to roughneck two, do you copy?" the field marshal's voice in his ear was a thick buzz of static, but that alone was enough to ratchet his hopes up a few notches.

The radio call was brief and to the point. Dalray laid it out the way it was; there was no way to dress it up—men had died, and died horribly. If the field marshal blamed him, he couldn't tell. All he had was his orders: go north, hook up with the whitecoats if possible and await extraction.

Just as he was about to bark his orders to the survivors, inspired a little by the memory of a certain old grizzled non-comm from his youth, his eyes caught movement to the north.

Whatever it was that moved hidden through the grass seemed to wander aimlessly, and he only caught brief glimpses of a dark shape before the sea of grass swallowed it up again. The path it had trampled through the meadow seemed to zigzag wildly, as if lost. He silently signalled the danger sign to his men while he edged forward a few feet at a time. He saw them tense up immediately, but they got to their feet fast and were staying frosty—a good sign that they hadn't cracked. He edged forward slowly, crossing the threshold where the mountain ended and the rich, loamy soils of the grasslands begun. As he approached, he realised with some surprise that the sawgrass was a good deal taller than he had first thought, and towered at least a foot above him, and even higher in some places. Here at ground level the grass was a thick impenetrable screen. It was too risky to go any further; they would have to stay put and let the contact either come to them or pass them by; moving through the meadow would offer excellent concealment, but would utterly blind them to what lay ahead. It was a gamble too far. He cautiously fell back on his squad's position, always keeping his eyes on the swaying curtain of grass. Whatever it was that was moving through it was going to breach into the open soon, and only a hundred meters to the left of his squad's position. He ordered Woods and Troy to watch the rear; Frears, Hooper and Nicks were to follow him as they skirted down the slope to the left, hoping to catch the flank of whatever emerged in hope of blind-siding it.

"Remember: short controlled bursts," he whispered, particularly catching Frears' eye as they waited. In a short time the footsteps of the hidden thing were audible—a mixture of rustles and shambling through the cover with an awkward rhythm that took a few moments to fix as footsteps at all. It was close now, maybe only ten feet from the open. Dalray loosened the crick in his neck, pulled the stock of his blazer against his right shoulder. He squeezed his left eye shut and peered down the sights with his other, aiming at the fringe where the grasslands met the mountain. He held his breath and depressed the trigger until it was a hair's breadth from firing, such was his familiarity with the weapon in his hands. Even another ounce of pressure would set the gun blazing.

Five feet now...

Four. Three.

What emerged was some bizarre three-headed beast with worried human faces he vaguely recollected. His wits quickly snapped together again and he realised it was three people: a blood spattered Asiatic man and a striking brunette woman, both shouldering the weight of a badly wounded Caucasian man. Aside from obvious wounds, all three were bleeding from a thousand thin paper cuts over the unclothed parts of their bodies, inflicted by the jagged edges of the tall sawgrass.

Both groups exchanged short, bewildered looks with each other, as if they had stumbled into something they had least expected, before a collective relief washed over all. Dalray signalled for his squad to stand down, lowering his blazer slowly.

The wounded man's head rolled aimlessly, senselessly on his neck, and pink froth drooled from between his lips with every moan or racking cough. His clothes were seared around his left armpit at a cavity of cauterised flesh in place of where his left lung should have been. Crimson bubbles frothed from the wound here and there where it hadn't been completely fused and cauterised.

"Help... Help us!" the brunette pleaded, breathing in exhausted wheezes, "I don't know if they followed us."

Dalray signalled for everyone to fall back to the rear. "What hit you?" he asked as he back-pedalled, keeping a watchful eye for any more trails cutting through the grassland, his gun trained into the gently wafting meadow.

"The ones from the debrief—the hunters," she answered, palming away a mixture of dew, rain, sweat and blood from her brow, "they came at us out of nowhere, like ghosts."

"Ghosts?" he echoed, bewildered.

Fran nodded, puffing with the effort of helping the wounded Gibson up the slope. "Their camouflage is near perfect... nearly invisible. We only saw them when they moved. And by then they were so close... too close."

"You're the whitecoats?"

Fran said nothing. Her eyes had a glazed look, an empty thousand yard stare.

"Are you the science team that hitched a ride with us or not?" demanded the lieutenant.

Fran's eyes stirred into life again. "Yes." Her reply was quiet, almost inaudible. Her bottom lip quivered on the verge of tears.

"Where's the rest of you?"

Distraught, she shook her head. On this world it was answer enough.

Troy suddenly came running down the slope to their position at full tilt, his finger stabbing to the plains at the north. "Sir, I think they're being followed," he puffed, catching his breath, "...three independent trails, all converging on our position. We've only got minutes."

Dalray's face was still and emotionless, though his mind was a turmoil of deeply ingrained survivor instinct being strangled by the tendrils sprouting from seeds of despair he had allowed to take root. They were stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place, and ammo was getting seriously limited after the earlier deadly encounter. Fight or flight, neither presented much hope, but he had been hardened with that _never say fuck it_ attitude from recruit to decorated vet to officer who was well respected on and by all levels. It wasn't over yet. Not yet it wasn't.

"Whu... where's the drop ship?" Fran cried, looking to the air and on the verge of sounding hysterical.

Dalray tried to take her by the arm and lead her up the slope, but she shrugged him off, insisting on supporting her wounded colleague. "We're still establishing comms. Now we've got to move."

"No! It's here!" she nearly wailed, "I have its beacon! I have its beacon!" She thrust her geo-plotter device into his hands, though the lieutenant couldn't discern what he was looking at; the tech was more advanced and way more sensitive than what grunts got in the field. Her finger stabbed at a pulsating yellow dot in a murk of other puzzling nodes, glyphs and waypoints.

"I can't read this. I have no bearing."

She thumbed in a quick combination on the minuscule button pad with a trembling hand and the view onscreen turned onto that of a regular topography survey. It made his heart simultaneously leap and sink, and he came to a halt in spite of himself, feeling barren hopelessness. He had his bearings now, and lifted his head to look to the south-east. There the mystery column of oily black smoke leaned into the sky and was carried ever eastward on the wind. His eyes fell back on to the device, and he shook his head solemnly. "The drop ship is gone."

She had followed his gaze, and when he uttered the words her quivering bottom lip curved to become an anguished wail. "Nooooooo...!"

His head was buzzing again, but now he felt a plan begin to emerge that unexpectedly offered a quantum of hope: crashed or not, there would be salvage of some sort to come from the drop ship: the precious ammo reserves each ship carried; the heavy entrenchment weapons which were stowed and could be parachuted into defending lines.

They could make a stand, he realised. A real stand. Hell, if the bird wasn't a complete wreck it could be set up as a fortified position. "We have to sneak by these things," he murmured as he watched the three snaking tracks in the grass converge and zero in on their position, "Hooper, gimme your medkit."

"Sir?"

"Now!"

Hooper fished the pack from his webbing pouch and tossed it to the lieutenant, who handed it to Shigeru. "Fix him up if you can, but be ready to move fast when I say."

"uhduhnwunnadie..." Colm groaned, forcing more bloody froth from the wound in his chest.

It would be an exercise in futility to try to reassure him; from the looks of the wound the hurt whitecoat was a dead man walking. Instead he beckoned Frears, Nicks, Troy, Hooper and Woods to him. "I think Cox is dead, sir." Frears said dejectedly on arrival as the lieutenant plucked the last grenade from his vest and tossed it to Troy.

"We have to stop them in their tracks. Stall them at the very least so we can make a run for it. Trips, frags, I don't care. I want a defensive position on that perimeter, mined with everything we've got." His eyes fell on Cox, who lay motionless on the wet rock up the slope. "Put him in his poncho. Take him with us."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X- 

"What the hell was that?" marvelled Brier, rising from her chair as the realtime display of the planet below suddenly bloomed with a massive white-grey ball.

"Barometrics just went off the chart, Lieutenant!" said Thomson anxiously.

Brier cast her eyes to Thomson's readout and back to hers, unconsciously biting the dried skin around her lips again. "It's an explosion."

"Negative," said Schultz immediately, "rads are holding steady."

"Then it's a clean explosion! Don't second guess me!" she barked, loud enough for the grunts guarding the corridor outside to hear through the steel door. "What's going on down there?"

"Lieutenant?" Thomson's voice was quiet, mousy. Brier's eyes fell on him and just willed him to second guess her too. Eschewing a second nut-busting she would give him after chewing him out for his conduct on comm with the field marshal, Thomson instead pointed to his readout for her to make her own assessment. "Something weird."

"No shit," she remarked as she crossed over to him, "I'm getting really tired with surprises already. What has barometrics found?"

"Not barometrics, sir; radar and sonar came back on line and ran a diagnostic. Just a single ping, but it got this..." the ensign enlarged a small thumbnail at the corner of his readout to fullscreen viewing. The image was a basic wireframe of what appeared to be a partial dome shape. The computer began tagging sections here and there with mathematical readings and statistics.

If it was possible, Brier's frown knitted together just a little tighter, but it was out of piqued curiosity and bewilderment now instead of frustration. "This is the echo from just the diagnostic ping?"

"Yessir. Look at the readings, sir," Thomson pointed at the stats that tagged the image, "it's mathematically perfect; a euclidean sphere."

"A what?"

"Jeez, only neutron stars are thought to be so perfect..." he pondered in wonderment.

Smart kid, thought Brier, but the issue here was not his education, but what it was he was trying to tell her. Unless this jargon-speak related to his damn day job it meant nothing. "This is underground," she remarked, as her finger traced the dome shape on screen, "and you think it's spherical. You think it goes deeper?"

Thomson nodded emphatically. "It has to. If these readings are correct it's a void of some sort, right underground. And it's big. It has volume."

"How big is big?" Brier asked, but Thomson was already doing the arithmetic in his mind to quantify the area within the void. He gazed at the ceiling, then squeezed his eyes shut, lips moving in silence as his mind went over the formula. Again, Brier marvelled at how intelligent he was. When he finished he blew out a small sigh.

"Well, pick any sports stadium in the world and it'll fit with room to spare," he announced, pursing his lips, hands and shoulders doing a _that's the way it is; take it or leave it_ shrug.

Brier looked back to the readouts. The equipment was designed to locate and map the maze of underground bug tunnels so that informed tactical choices could be made and implemented. She had seen a lot of bug bolt holes over the years before, during and after the TAC-nukes had fried everything within them, but she hadn't seen anything like this before. "Do a full scan; I want to know what it is," she ordered.

"Yessir." Thomson hit a few buttons then faltered again. "Wait a minute... wait a minute. The coordinates!" he added in astonishment.

"What about them?"

Schultz, who had been standing behind them unseen, answered for Thomson, pointing at the diagram: "That's where Field Marshal Rico reported the electrical storm; that's right where he said it hit the ground."


End file.
